


Remedial French

by extree



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-02-23 04:15:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 117,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2533814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extree/pseuds/extree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school history teacher Mr Gold doesn't much like himself for developing an infatuation with everyone's favorite new English teacher. He's so busy beating himself up over it, in fact, that he doesn't seem to notice that things might not be as one-sided as he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Apple?"

**Author's Note:**

> Shamelessly indulgent angstless romcom fodder in a cliché AU setting. Very little plot to speak of. I'll try to keep the word count down. No promises, though; I really can't trust myself.

She taught English, he taught history. He tamed unruly students with a fearsome glare he had perfected over the years; she didn’t have to, because no-one had the heart to upset or disappoint her. He was too intimidating to inspire a nickname; she had been fondly dubbed Disney Princess - Princess for short - because she never seemed to run out of patience and compassion for her lovestruck pupils, and she looked as if forest creatures flocked to her every time she set foot outside her front door. Together, Gold knew, they could rule a country as king and queen. He would govern with a strict but fair hand and inspire fear and respect with neighboring rulers. Her generosity and general loveliness would ensure their subjects’ loyalty while he raised taxes behind her back.

Fanciful nonsense, of course. He was no king. If anything, he was a tired old dragon, and she was a warrior who could reduce his fearsome flame breath to a pitiful puff of smoke with naught but a quirk of her eyebrow, sharp as a sword. But more accurate still - he was a history teacher, and she was an English teacher, and that was that. Colleagues. Acquaintances. But he’d grown very fond of her, and he was definitely not happy with that recent development in his life. Today, for instance, he was overcompensating for exactly that fondness by, perhaps, being too much of an ass.

He just liked the way the golden morning sunlight made her hair look like it was glowing as she busied herself in the little kitchen area of the teacher’s lounge. The decor - if one could call it that - consisted of cheap wood paneling, orange curtains and dark brown upholstered seats that had seen better days (in the late seventies, from the looks of it) and he liked how the color scheme seemed to make sense with her there in that light. Contrast. Dark, warm tones for her to stick out in. He liked it so much he slipped and let himself smile at the back of her head, and when she turned around and almost caught him, he inwardly cursed himself to hell and back. Now he was hiding behind a piece of paper like a shy child.

“Mr Gold?”

“Ms French?” he sighed, not even affording her a glance.

He used to hate Australian accents.

“Would you like some tea?” she asked, undeterred by his bored tone. “I was just about to have some myself.”

But now he loved the way those ridiculous vowels shaped her lips.

Suddenly ashamed of his needlessly unfriendly response, he looked up at her with what he hoped was only a moderately apologetic look, and mumbled, “Yes. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sunshine.”

It was just a handful of words softly spoken under her breath, but he’d heard them loud and clear. He suspected she meant him to. He considered objecting to the ironic endearment for a moment, but then snapped his mouth right back shut. Better not encourage her. It was a pattern of sorts. Gold would pretend he wasn’t a little bit smitten with her - sometimes to the point of feigning annoyance - and she would pretend he was actually good company for whatever dark reasons she may have had. She brushed off his halfhearted rudeness with a roll of the eyes and an amused little smile, and he would settle down and be grateful she kept it at that and didn’t call him out on it like he knew she could. It was very nice to go home at the end of the day with his dignity somewhat intact, even though he probably didn’t really deserve to.

This had been their pattern since he walked into the teacher’s lounge one day and saw her sitting in _his_ chair. “That’s my seat,” he had said on that fine late winter morning. She’d looked up from her book - hardcover, no dust jacket, bound in black cloth - and raised an eyebrow at him. There was something about her look, then, that made him want to flee the room with his tail between his legs, but instead of doing something humiliating as that he had clarified, “I mean, I usually sit there.”

And she’d just smiled. Calmly. Faintly. Asked him, “Oh, I’m sorry. Would you like me to move?” in that unexpected accent of hers and froze him in place, because by asking him that, she’d put her sword to his neck. It was as if she was testing him. He could have told her no and pretended he was above this sort of thing, but then that wouldn’t have explained why he had mentioned it in the first place. The only other option was to hang in there, power through, and let her know that he was not a pleasant person, and she would do well to keep that in mind. And so he’d nodded, which already felt like a defeat of some sort, so he wasn’t sure why he had let her two seconds of silence urge him into adding, “I would, yes,” for good measure.

“No problem,” she had said with a curious smile, abandoning his seat to settle down into the chair next to his, the avoidance of which was also an unspoken and unwritten rule amongst the staff, who treated him with a well balanced mixture of fear, respect, and pity for having been passed over for the position of vice principal for years, now.

(Little did they know he’d been offered several times. He always kept his reasons for just about any decision he ever made close to his chest, but what it came down to in this particular instance was that a man not officially in power was very difficult to remove from it, and Gold knew that. He wielded enough influence to get his way whenever it really mattered to him. That was all he needed. Much less paperwork.)

Curiously, a week or two before the chair incident, he had spotted Ms French in the public library. Well, she had spotted him first, to be precise, because he distinctly remembered looking up from his book to see whose flowery perfume that was, and found this pair of striking blue eyes staring at him from the seat opposite his at the reading table. _Ridiculously_ blue, mind. No exaggeration. It was excessive, really, how blue those eyes were, and that was the only reason he’d stared back. She didn’t look away, like most people did, but smiled instead. It was just a quick smile - one you might expect from a daydreaming stranger on the train who hadn’t meant to stare. But then five minutes later when he couldn’t help but look up to see if she was still staring like he suspected she was, it had happened again. There was nothing apologetic about her smile that time. He had thought, then, that perhaps if he glared back at her she would back down, but oddly enough his face wouldn’t cooperate, and he ended up just gawping for a moment. He’d gathered his things and left as quickly as he could. He simply couldn’t concentrate like that.

He remembered that. It seemed that she didn’t. That was a good thing.

So Ms French - the new English teacher, as he later found out - had sat herself down in his chair on her first day. He could forgive her for that because she was new; she had no way of knowing. But the second time around, well - that could only have been forgetfulness or insolence. And yet when he had scowled and opened his mouth to ask which it was, she got up and moved to the seat next to his with a bright smile and a chirpy, “Saved your seat for you!” and he had been baffled into silence.

So there was a third option he hadn’t considered, apparently, but he still wasn’t sure what exactly it was. Not insolence, nor forgetfulness. So a game, perhaps? Only she didn’t seem the type to play them. Instead of curtly informing her that she was the only one who considered his chair appropriate seating, anyway, and that therefore there was no need to guard it like a faithful but misguided dog, Gold had sat down wordless and confused in a faint cloud of her lingering perfume - roses, like in the library. She had let him read his paper in peace.

That was weeks ago. The winter winds that blew his head clean of thoughts of her as he left the building at the end of each day had made way for hopeful spring temperatures, and he felt himself begin to crack and thaw under her sun.

Because since then, his chair was often warm when he sat in it, and she made it a point to acknowledge him with a greeting or a smile in the teacher’s lounge, in the halls, and wherever else she caught him. At the end of the day she would often walk past his classroom, smile, wave and move on. He knew when she was heading his way, because he started to recognize the sound of her quick, small steps as the days turned into weeks. He never waved back, but he started nodding after a while, and she took that as a sign that they were on small talk terms all of the sudden, which meant that he was now answering her yes and no questions and exchanging good mornings and see you tomorrows.

And somewhere along the line, he’d gotten a little bit too fond of her. She was beautiful, of course, which certainly didn’t help, but there was something about her that threatened to disarm him entirely. Her confidence, he supposed, and her subtle irreverence for his darker moods. There was something actually rather comforting about the fact that Ms French could take his distant demeanor in stride. By simply accepting him as a grumpy old fool, she had lowered his defenses to the point that he didn’t want to be rude anymore. He didn’t want to pretend he thought her an annoying little puppy following him around, which he had heavily insinuated once or twice when she asked him to help make sense of a recent schedule adjustment, or something else completely reasonable to ask if you were new on the job. He wanted to find out more about her and learn to talk to her the way she talked to him - with ease and without pretense. But still he mostly let her chat away at him, never offering many words of his own for fear of letting his truth sneak out among the meaningless small talk and the hushed gossip.

So when he sensed his own kind words and fond smiles sneaking up on him as he listened to her increasingly entertaining anecdotes, he would catch himself just in time and veered sharply to the other side with a dismissive comment or even silence, sometimes. Strangely, that didn’t seem to deter her. Perhaps that was exactly his appeal; she probably knew that he wouldn’t for a second be under the illusion that a woman like her would be interested in a man like him, and Gold hoped that his occasional sullen moods had helped cement that impression. Ms French was more likely than not drowning in suitors, and it was entirely possible that she just appreciated his lack of outward romantic interest.

That didn’t explain why she thought he would make for a good workplace friend, but perhaps she was just a mite dafter than she seemed.

Every day, she grew on him a little bit more, and he hadn’t counted on that. He had started to look forward to her chirpy good mornings, hoped he’d bump into her in the hallways, was curious to see what manner of fashion sorcery she’d performed in front of her closet that morning to make him want to figure out the science behind it. He liked her, now. He was attracted to her, of course - anyone would be - but he liked her, too, and that was just statistically improbable, really. He barely liked anyone. Ms French was intelligent, amusing and kind, and surely there must have been some huge, unforgivable flaw she was hiding away somewhere? Skeletons in her closet, next to the cute skirts and colorful blouses? Literal ones? He wanted to know what the catch was. He wanted to find out why that Disney Princess nickname the students had given her didn’t really strike him as completely apt.

All of which terrified him to the core. He was a grown man who had long since accepted the fact that he would die alone, crushed under a pile of hoarded newspapers in a decade or three, and he did not appreciate this sudden… infatuation. Not one bit. It was completely useless and distracting. He’d gotten good at being alone. He wasn’t lonely. Well, not often, and not very. Just when he was in an inexplicable good mood and there was no-one to share it with. But that rarely happened, luckily, and when it did, he just threw back a glass of scotch and turned up the music just enough to drown out that hollow echo in the back of his head telling him that one divorce and a couple of disastrous dalliances did not mean he was forever doomed to fuck up every other potential relationship.

That was all beside the point, anyway. He liked her, and she had taken a liking to him in a different way, which was perfectly fine. He could admire her from afar, as long as he kept at a safe distance, although admittedly that was getting to be a bit of a problem, lately. She made him smile and she stressed him out. He was drawn to her and she triggered some sort of fight-or-flight response in him, and that was why today, he’d started off too mean. She’d called him sunshine for it. He’d dialed it back and now everything was alright again. Simple as that. They just sort of worked - precariously balanced though they were.

“Here’s your tea!” she said, handing him his mug and settling down in the chair next to his with her own. He mouthed, “Thank you,” and took a sip. Too hot. Much too hot. He should have known; it was steaming. If she’d noticed, she was keeping mercifully quiet. She abandoned her mug on the coffee table in front of them for a moment to delve into the large leather bag at her feet. When she came back up, she held out a large, red, admittedly delicious looking apple and gestured for him to take it.

“Apple?”

“No thank you.”

She shrugged, dropped it right back into her bag and reunited herself with her own mug. “A friend was staying with me for a couple of weeks while she was flat-hunting. She left loads of these behind and now I’m stuck eating them,” she explained. “I thought I might eat them in between classes, but then I figured, better not give that lot any ammo, y’know?”

He’d been blowing air into his tea in a fairly useless attempt at cooling it down while he listened. He took another sip (still much too hot) then softly said, “I don’t think they’re comparing you to that one.”

“What?”

“Snow White’s not the Disney princess they have in mind, what with your first name and all.”

And when he looked up to find her gawping at him with her brow creased in confusion, Gold knew he had made a mistake. A realization like a punch to the gut.

“Huh? I just meant it’s a cliché for a teacher to have an apple on their desk. Isn’t it? What are _you_ talking about?”

A mistake indeed. She was still staring at him, clearly waiting for an explanation of some sort, and Gold felt the need to put down his tea before his hands started shaking and he ended up with minor burns on his thighs and tea all over the stack of papers still in his lap.

“You didn’t know,” he said. It almost sounded like a question, but not quite.

“I still don’t!” she laughed, crossing one leg over the other, folding her arms on the arm rest of his chair and leaning in closer, waiting for him to explain himself. God, why so close, though? Perhaps she thought she took up less space than she actually did. The poor girl must have been told she was tiny so often she now believed she couldn’t possibly invade anyone’s personal space. Gold tried to scoot to the opposite corner of his chair as much as he possibly could without being very obvious about it - which wasn’t a lot.

“The students,” he explained. “They like to come up with nicknames for teachers, and I’m afraid they’ve settled on Princess for you.”

This was mortifying. This was more than he’d said to her all week. He wished he hadn’t put his tea away. It was taking him quite some effort to keep his hands from fidgeting as he felt her eyes on him. When he finally gathered the courage to glance over, she looked a little less mystified.

“ _Princess?_ Why? Do they think I’m prissy? Stuck-up?”

“No, that’s not it. Nothing like that,” he assured her. “It’s actually Disney Princess. They’ve shortened it.”

“But why?”

Gold sat up a little straighter. He had just found the last remaining ounce of fight in him, and he was ready to use it. As deadpan as he could considering the fact that he knew he was slowly being backed into a corner, he replied, “Princess is shorter than Disney Princess.”

Ms French snorted, rolled her eyes and damn near growled, “You know what I mean.”

Fuck. Now he was going to have to…

“You’re just very kind and helpful. Patient with your students. And…”

Beautiful was accurate. Stunning, too. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. _Hauntingly_ beautiful, if he allowed himself to be even more nauseating for a moment. But those were all too personal. Those were the words that held meaning to him. The words that came to mind when he saw her.

“And?”

No stuttering, Gold told himself. Absolutely none of that. It was just a harmless word. Not an _entirely_ objective descriptor, but close enough. He just had to spit it out, and this conversation would be over. Her question answered, her nickname explained, the torture over and done with.

“Pretty.”

Harmless enough, right? Wildly insufficient, but safe.

“Oh!” Her lips rounded when she made that sound, struggling against a smile. “I suppose I can live with that.”

Finally, with her curiosity satisfied, she sat back and stopped leaning on his chair. He sighed in relief as if she was an army of a much bigger country with a much higher GDP and she’d just withdrawn from his borders, but he had the good sense to disguise it as a very soft cough to clear his throat.

“Sounds a bit patronizing at first, I agree, but I’ve heard worse. Much worse.”

“Yeah, I’m cool with it, I think,” she said with a charming lopsided grin. “If I ignore the Disney part, I can pretend they mean Xena.”

“Hm?”

“Warrior Princess?”

“Oh.”

No clue. He reached for his tea again and when he sipped this time, the temperature was bearable. It made him feel a little more competent. A little more relaxed, even though it didn’t look like she was done talking, yet.

“So you do know my name is Belle,” she mused, hiding her smirking mouth behind her cup of tea. “You said they wouldn’t compare me to Snow White because of my first name. I thought you might not have known, but you do.”

“I know everyone’s name,” he mumbled.

She laughed at that. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t really very noticeable if you weren’t paying attention, but he saw her shoulders shake for a moment, and he knew. That wasn’t the first time either; accidentally making her laugh and then being torn between feeling just a little bit offended and a little bit pleased was part of their pattern as well.

“What’s your nickname, then?” she asked.

“I don’t have one.”

“Why not?”

“They only give you a nickname if they’re very fond of you or if they think you’re a complete waste of space. I’m somewhere in between. They like you, hence the nickname. I’m not liked, but I’m not enough of a bastard to be loathed either, hence the lack of one.”

“Oh, come on. I’m sure they like you,” she sang, putting her hand on the arm rest of his chair - a squadron of soldiers right back at his borders.

“It’s not my job to be liked,” he muttered, his voice a little drier than he would have liked. He returned his attention to the stack of papers in his lap and hoped that signaled the end of their conversation. These were almost comically awful. He’d have to sit that lot down and introduce the concept of paragraphs to them soon. But wasn’t that Ms French’s job? And why wasn’t she looking away? He could still feel her eyes on him. It was terribly distracting. From the corner of his eye, he saw her uncross her legs, smooth down her skirt and stand.

He glanced up. She was smiling at him. He almost smiled back.

“I would have liked you,” she said with a shrug. She brushed her apple against the fabric of her skirt to make it even shinier and walked towards the door with a click click click of her heels.

“A bit too much, maybe,” she added in a deeper voice. Then _snap_ , she took a big chunk out of her apple and disappeared around the corner chewing and smiling.

Gold frowned. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

He turned to the next page of the sloppily stapled together paper and narrowed his eyes. Did the font size just change in the middle of a paragraph? Jesus Christ, was everyone out to drive him insane, today? He fished a pen out of his jacket pocket (red, always on his person) and struck through the entire thing with a sense of satisfaction he dared not further investigate for fear of discovering that he was taking out his frustrations on whoever the hell it was who hadn’t bothered to pick a font size and stick to it.

He shoved the papers in his satchel and groaned as he lifted himself up from his chair and ventured into the hallways where some busy young man promptly stomped on his foot - the one that was connected to his aching ankle. The kid stumbled for a few steps, then froze and turned around in slow motion with his mouth and eyes wide open in fear. Gold bit back the tirade he had been fully prepared on unleashing; this kid looked as if he was about to soil himself.

“I’m s-s-sorry, Mr Gold. I d-didn’t see you.”

“Run along,” he muttered with a nod.

Someone else would fuck up today. On purpose. And then he might dole out some detention and feel less soft and malleable inside. He might feel like a grown man again, not some fantasizing pubescent student of Ms French’s. Daniels, probably. Daniels was always looking to fuck up.

And indeed, later on, it was Daniels who had a plastic container on his desk and was grinning, posturing, and soliciting the attention of the girl at the desk next to his. Gold bit down on his pleased smirk, then cleared his throat and called the boy’s name.

“Yes, sir?”

“What’s in the box?”

“Jason, sir.”

“And what is Jason?”

“A snail, sir.”

A snail. He’d brought a snail into his classroom. From the looks of it, he’d made it a little makeshift terrarium in someone’s tupperware lunchbox. How annoying. Almost cute. Definitely more annoying than cute, however.

“You know how I feel about distractions, don’t you? So tell me, Daniels. Would Jason prefer detention, or to be crushed under my heel for distracting the rest of the class?”

Daniels was a clever dark-haired boy whose growth spurt had never really arrived. He was no idiot, but he had too much energy and spare time on his hands and had decided to act like one. The boy feigned offense and slapped his hand over his heart. Gold crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair with an eyebrow raised in expectation.

“But sir!” he whined. “Could I perhaps deposit Jason on the windowsill and forgo both detention _and_ the grisly execution of my new friend, here?”

Ah, fuck, he hadn’t counted on that. Usually, Daniels relished the opportunity to take a bullet in front of his classmates. Was he wising up? Could he not have chosen any other day to do that?

“Alright,” he sighed, motioning towards the window, “but be quick about it.”

Gold watched as the boy stood up, picked up his box, walked over to the window at a leisurely pace, opened it and swiftly clambered out, box and all, shouting, “Bye, sir!”

The class tittered, and Gold allowed himself a quick smirk while they were all distracted by the class clown running to freedom with his pet snail under his arm. Good old Daniels. How could he ever have doubted him? He would be back soon enough, and Gold could finally pull that trigger he’d been itching to pull. He felt better already. He would let the rest of the class gawk and giggle for another minute or so before restoring order by bringing his fist down on his wooden desk. Sometimes they just needed to get it out of their system.

“Hey, Mr Gold?”

Ms French. He turned to see her grasping the doorframe, peeking her head past the open door. He swallowed nervously and swiveled his chair towards her.

“Yes?”

She took one step into his classroom, unnoticed by the students who had congregated at the window, giggling and pointing at whatever Daniels was getting up to.

“I, uh, I think I just saw one of yours climb out of the window and run off?”

“You did indeed,” he replied, nodding towards the open window with half a smirk. She must have been sitting in the teacher’s lounge if she’d witnessed that. The school was made up of two separate buildings, and this one was L-shaped. From his desk, he had a view of the teacher’s lounge, and he sometimes caught a glimpse of her sitting by the window with her nose in a book.

“Would you like me to go get him?” she asked cautiously - as if she thought he might be offended by her offer to help. He couldn’t blame her for that, really. That was exactly the kind of impression he endeavored to make with everyone else.

“No, that’s fine. He’ll be back.”

“Does this, uh… happen often?”

“This is new to the repertoire, actually.”

She smiled and frowned at the same time, looking adorably confused. The woman barely ever had to raise her voice, so of course she wouldn’t have had to deal with something like this. On any other day, Gold might have shouted thinly veiled abuse after the little fucker already, but for some reason, even after Ms French had made him feel like a bumbling idiot in the teacher’s lounge and that kid had stomped on his foot in the hallway, he was in a good mood now.

And with his good moods came those sudden waves of loneliness, and now he stupidly wished the kids would just fuck off out of the window after Daniels and leave him alone with Ms French for a moment. He wanted to hear her complain about her apple surplus, or verbally tear an overrated novel to shreds with a fierceness that made an interesting contrast with her outwardly level-headed and agreeable demeanor.

But what he _needed_ was for her to leave before his smug smirk turned into a daft, lovestruck smile, so he forced himself to raise an eyebrow and ask her, “Was there anything else?”

“No, I ju-”

She twisted her head around when she heard the sound of running footsteps approaching, and stepped aside to make way for Gold’s favorite fuck-up.

“Speak of the devil!” she chirped.

“Hi, miss!” he said, grinning like the devil himself. He was out of breath. Probably just ran a few laps and then remembered he’d left all of his things in here.

“Hello, Kevin,” she replied with a barely hidden tone of amusement.

“Welcome back, Daniels,” Gold sighed as the kid went around collecting pats on the shoulder and appreciative smiles from his admiring classmates.

“Thanks, sir. How many?”

“Well, this little stunt was a bit more irresponsible than the others,” mused Gold. “Plus, you trampled the marigolds. Five days, I think.”

Daniels settled into his seat with a sigh, shrugged and muttered, “Yeah, I guess that’s fair.”

The kid was relatively reasonable sometimes, all things considered. Gold turned to thank Ms French for the offer of help and dismiss her (she was still hovering in the doorway for some reason) but then he noticed something. Or, well, the lack of something.

“Where’s Jason?” he asked, brow furrowed. Daniels opened his mouth to answer, but before he could get the words, out, Ms French spoke up.

“Who’s Jason? Did another boy run after him?”

“No, no,” Gold hurried. “That was -”

Daniels threw his head back and cackled. Gold clenched his jaw and shot the boy a glare that would have been lethal had he actually been looking back at him.

“Daniels’ pet snail,” he explained meekly after swallowing down his rage, feeling the beginnings of an entirely unnecessary blush creep up his neck.

“Oh, I see,” she lilted, grinning.

“I set him free in the marigolds, sir.”

Why had he even asked? He didn’t care. Ms French disguised a giggle with a cough and walked away, the sound of her heels echoing in the hallway. And then he finally heard that giggle burst free. He felt himself begin to smile despite his best efforts.

Should have crushed the damn snail.

…

The sun was starting to set and the kids had all run off to whatever it was they got up to on a Friday evening these days. He would sit at his desk for a little while longer and have another look at those papers. He wouldn’t have to see Ms French for a couple of days; perhaps he’d come to his senses in the mean time. Perhaps he’d like her less on Monday. Perhaps she would have forgotten about the snail thing by then.

And the fact that he’d called her pretty.

He sat at his desk and sighed at the end of damn near every other sentence, shaking his head and tapping his fingers on the desk just a little bit too hard to distract himself from the pain pulsing in his ankle. Yes, he would go home soon, take his pain meds and stop thinking of her.

A soft knock on the doorframe made him look up, and there she was again - smiling and cocking her head to the side just a bit as if asking for permission to come bother him. He hadn’t heard her approach this time. He’d been too focused on the pain and the terrible grammar. Oh, but how he loathed that split second fluttering in his stomach whenever she caught him on his own. There was some cursed part of his brain that refused to listen to reason and made him feel these pinpricks of excitement, of expectation and potential where really, there was nothing at all.

“Hey.”

He allowed himself to smile this time. He was off the clock, really, and there was no mob of unruly adolescents nearby to intimidate, so it was alright.

“Hey,” he replied.

“You up to anything fun this weekend?”

“Afraid not.”

She just stood there and smiled, and he didn’t know what else to do but smile back. What was she expecting? Him to have an interesting social life? Unusual hobbies? Was she waiting for an explanation as to why he didn’t have anything planned? Was she waiting for him to ask her the same question?

“Alright, then,” she sighed, still smiling away. “Have a good one.”

“You too.”

“See you Monday.”

“Monday. Yes.”

Why was she still standing there staring at him? Why did she always make him ask himself so many questions? If he had to sit there and smile much longer, he’d surely get some sort of facial cramp.

“Bye, Mr Gold.”

And she was off with a polite nod and a little wave. Finally. Gold sighed and sank down into his chair, dug his fingers into his hair and listened until the sound of her footsteps died out. He had said more to her today than he had in the entire week, and he was exhausted. His ankle hurt, he was starting to get a headache, but he was in such an inexplicably decent mood that when he got home that evening, he didn’t want to crawl right into bed.

Instead, he sat out in the garden with a cup of black tea steaming elegant white curls into the chilly nighttime air and enjoyed the sight of the full moon. At least his vision was still good. That was something, wasn’t it? Two whole days. Two whole days to stop being quite so fond of Ms French. It hadn’t worked the weekend before, nor the weekend before that, or any of the other weekends, obviously. But perhaps this weekend would be different.

Gold sat. He sipped. He wished he still smoked. He stared up at the stars and the moon and silently recited key dates in US history as if he still needed to after decades of trying to shove them into teenage skulls. A glass of scotch, later. After his tea. But he would sit out here for a little while longer still.

He bet her eyes were a sight to see in this bright moonlight.

He was fucked.


	2. Symmetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a Saturday night, Mr Gold runs into a familiar face somewhere a little bit surprising.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are awesome. Thanks for the comments and kudos and general enthusiasm. Super encouraging. <3

Gold had missed his nighttime walks. With spring finally here, he could head out again without worrying about slipping on icy sidewalks, falling down, breaking his skull and dying in one of the most anti-climactic ways imaginable. It was still fairly chilly at night, but there was no need for gloves or a scarf. All he needed was his coat and his cane, and of course his wallet for when he reached his favorite awful bar and popped in for a drink before moving on to the harbor.

The Rabbit Hole was an interesting place. Seedy might be the way to best describe it. In the fifteen minutes or so he spent there nursing a glass of surprisingly good whisky, Gold usually just sat and enjoyed the anonymity. It was a small town, and the place where it would be slightly inappropriate for a local high school teacher to be seen was also the place where it was least likely to happen.

The Rabbit Hole reminded him of other places and different times. Nights spent laughing, sneaking girls into his room, drinking and smoking and listening to records all night long, hoping the girl he was trying to impress wouldn’t notice the fact that the needle on his record player needed replacing months ago. He remembered feeling invincible even in the face of looming deadlines and an uncertain future. He always knew fully well the hangover would be unforgiving the next day, but he never let that stop him. The young are rewarded for their brazen idiocy with warm memories and amusing anecdotes, and he knew that too. 

When he turned the corner, the bar came into view. He saw a young couple stumbling out of the building arm in arm with a short burst of heavy guitar music for accompaniment until the door fell shut behind them again and muffled the sound, and Gold idly wondered when he stopped being that carefree idiot who always gave things a go, at least. Who didn’t often go home alone.

Temperatures were still cold enough so that the thick, suffocating air blowing his hair back as he opened the door to The Rabbit Hole was actually welcome. The heat of too many bodies in a confined space enveloped him and drew him in like it used to back in his tiny Glasgow bedsit with the radiator on full blast, sitting on his bed with his back against the wall, thigh to thigh with a girl who was close to crying because she’d accidentally burned a hole in his mattress with her cigarette. He’d pulled the covers off to show her all of the other burns he’d made himself, and one teary-eyed hug and another beer later, her fingers were fiddling with his zipper and his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

That was a good night.

The door fell shut behind him and he scanned the room for a place to sit with his whisky and his memories. The place was busier than usual. That was alright, though, as long as there was a table left to sit at. He had never minded the busy buzz of drunken celebrants in the right context. He did not, however, like the thought of having to clamber on and off bar chairs with his ankle acting up.

And oh, there was an empty table, alright, but there was an obstacle standing in between him and his favorite spot. Rather small, as obstacles went, and to anyone else probably completely surmountable, but not to Gold.

Because there she was. The mere sight of her was a needle to his bubble of nostalgia and left him the nervous, dusty mess of a man he had grown up to be. _Pop._ Just like that.

But that Princess nickname Ms French had been given would be hotly contested if any of her pupils had managed to sneak into The Rabbit Hole that evening. The hemline of her blue dress was decidedly _not_ at a Disney approved height, and did he just see her throw back a particularly vile looking shot without even so much as a shudder? There was a woman with her - brown hair, red dress and a wicked grin - cheering as she watched her slam her shot glass back down on the counter. This was interesting. And dangerous. He knew he had to leave. He’d started to turn when suddenly her eyes caught him trying to slink away, and he froze. A deer in the headlights.

“Gold!” she cried out, slipping off her seat at the bar a lot more smoothly than he would have expected from someone in heels that high, a dress that short and a mystery amount of alcohol in her. She’d dropped the Mr already, tearing a layer of armor from him with a terrifying ease. Too late to sneak back out, now, Gold realized, feeling an unwelcome twinge of panic in his chest.

Ms French had grabbed her taller friend’s hand and came bouncing up to him with her cheery grin. Why did she look so happy to see him? She was out having fun. She didn’t need to be reminded of work, and neither did he. He tightened his grip on the handle of his cane and tried to look as if he wasn’t trying to come up with an exit strategy. The pair of them came to a standstill right in front of him, grinning and swaying just a little bit.

“Hey! Gold! What are you doing here?”

Her cheeks were red - a little tell that made him suspect he hadn’t just witnessed her first shot of the night. Before he could answer that he was doing absolutely nothing and that he had merely walked in by mistake, her friend spoke up.

“So that’s Mr Gold, huh?” she mewled, poking Ms French in the ribs and making her laugh and squirm away. “In that case, I can ditch Belle guilt-free.”

“Ruby! No!”

“Sorry, sweetie,” she said, plucking Ms French’s hand from her shoulder. “I’m out. Nice to meet you, Mr Gold!”

Gold opened his mouth to say something, but he hadn’t yet decided on what exactly that was going to be, so he was very happy when it became apparent that this Ruby person wasn’t planning on sticking around to wait for his answer, anyway. She planted a kiss on Ms French’s cheek, grabbed the hand of an impatient looking girl seated at a table nearby and swanned out of the bar, singing, “Have fun!” right before the door fell shut again.

“Please,” she said, drawing his attention right back to her flushed face, “let me buy you a drink!”

He wanted to stay, and he needed to leave, so he told her, “No, there’s no need. I’ll leave you to it.”

“No! Come on! I wanna hang out! I’ve been wanting to for a while.”

Ah, fuck. She cocked her head to the side, raised her eyebrows and tried to give him some sort of sad look that would have looked more at home on a puppy pleading for scraps at the dinner table. A husky mix of some sort. Or weren’t there a few Australian breeds with eyes like that?

“I don’t know…”

“You’ll be doing me a favor. Friend of a friend’s birthday party,” she muttered, pointing towards a small group of young men and women, “but I only showed up because my best friend needed a wing woman, and well…”

“The lady who just stormed out?”

“Yeah. Ruby. I’m sure she would have introduced herself, but she, uh… was in a hurry, and well…”

Ms French trailed off and bit her lip. He sighed and glanced over at the group of cheery looking young men and women congregating around the pool table. Well, one of them didn’t look quite so cheery, but the rest of them did. Two of them looked over, grinned and leaned closer for a hushed exchange Gold was glad he couldn’t hear. His eyes were drawn back to Ms French when she bounced on her heels once or twice.

“Please?”

He didn’t stand a chance when she was smiling at him like that. He didn’t stand the fucking shadow of a chance, and he felt the last bit of resistance melt away and settle into something warm and liquid in the pit of his stomach.

“Alright, then,” he sighed. “But I’m paying.”

The way her face lit up made ripples in that pool of warmth. He bit the inside of his cheek.

“Second round’s on me, then.”

He hadn’t thought there was going to be one. Gold coughed to clear his throat of the strange dryness that had settled there with no warning and followed her to the bar. “What are you having?” he asked.

“Whatever you’re having.”

“It’s whisky.”

Ms French shrugged and smiled. “Whisky’s fine.”

“The regular?” asked the barkeep.

“Two!” chimed Ms French.

The barkeep gave him a quick questioning look. Gold nodded, and the man set to fixing their drinks. He slapped a bill down on the counter. He’d know to keep the change.

“D’you wanna sit at the bar?”

“Booth might be best,” he muttered, nodding towards his cane and hoping he wouldn’t have to explain.

She nodded, took both of their glasses and led the way.

“Never thought I’d see you here,” she said, putting their drinks and the purse on the table as if she was under the impression that these tables were cleaned on a regular basis, which Gold knew for a fact they weren’t. She slid into the booth and shifted in her seat until she got comfortable, tugging at the bottom of her dress to - presumably - avoid some sort of wardrobe mishap.

“Likewise,” he replied, trying not to groan as he lowered himself onto the bench opposite the one she’d chosen.

“I already explained why I’m here, though. Your turn, I think.”

He propped his cane up against the seat, near the wall, and she took that moment to nudge his glass closer to his side of the table with a mischievous grin.

“Good whisky,” he said, taking the hint and picking up his glass. “Plenty of dark corners to sit in peace. Low likelihood of running into anyone reputable.”

She snorted and scrunched up her face in a way that made her eyes twinkle while he tried to focus on the burn on the back of his tongue - not her neckline.

“I like to take walks some nights,” he clarified. “I pass this place on the way to the harbor. I never stay very long.”

“I would have pictured you in a slightly classier establishment, if I’m honest.”

“It’s a small town. We’re not spoiled for choice, really, are we?”

“Right,” she said, nodding. “That’s why I usually just stay at home and have friends over. This place is fine, but it’s a bit…”

She trailed off again with a sigh and looked around the room as if searching for the words she needed to finish her sentence, chewing her lip in thought. Gold followed her wandering gaze and within the span of a few seconds witnessed someone spilling his beer into a bowl of peanuts, a man throwing a dart into the curtain, another one accidentally poking some poor girl in the chest with the back of a pool cue and another girl bumping into a table and nearly tipping over a glass of wine.

“Much?” he offered.

“Yeah. A bit much. But I’m glad I came, now,” she said, turning back to face him with a smile. “It’s nice to see you outside of school for once.”

He used to be able to keep up a conversation. If it had been anyone else, he would have known what to say in response to that. Something sardonic - an insult disguised as banter. But in the spotlight of her curious gaze, all he wanted was to tell her yes; this was nice, but also a bit terrifying.

As if she could read minds (God, he hoped she couldn’t) she quickly added, “I mean, it’s always interesting to see someone in a different setting than what you’re used to, right?” and threw him a lifeline before his silence grew to embarrassing proportions and suffocated him.

“That’s true,” he said. “It’s always a bit strange.”

His were hollow words to pad the space between them and prop up the conversation like a corpse for a memento mori. Empty but apparently functional, because she nodded as if he’d just said something profound, and now he felt a little more safe.

“The other teachers, they, uh. They talk,” she said. Her voice was a little more hushed, now, but she’d scooted to the edge of her chair as if to make up for that.

“Incessantly,” he muttered. He noticed with some satisfaction that he’d made her smile. He took a great sip from his drink and poured every drop of his self control into making sure his face didn’t contort most inelegantly at the taste. He was very glad she wasn’t drinking hers, yet. He felt a little bit as if he ought to catch up. Or was that a terrible idea?

“What I mean is I, uh… heard you have a child.”

Gold raised an eyebrow. They told her that, did they? Well, he’d always known them to be a bunch of gossips. He supposed he really had no right to be surprised.

“A son,” he replied. “Moved out a long time ago. He lives in New York.”

It would have been a good time to mention the fact that they looked just about the same age, to cement the idea that he wouldn’t be interested in her like that. Somehow, the words got stuck in his throat and fell down into his stomach, dissolving with the rest of his unspoken words.

“And you’re not married?”

“I’m not, no.”

“Me neither,” she sighed, sitting back in her seat with a smile he couldn’t read. “Not married, I mean. No boyfriend either. See that guy kinda glaring at you? Right by the door.”

Gold glanced at the glowering, towering dark-haired man by the door who had been staring daggers at him for a while. He had just assumed they had beaten him to his preferred table or something like that.

“I noticed that, actually. Do you think I’ve pulled?”

She threw her head back and laughed, and God - it felt so good to make her laugh on purpose. He might try that again tonight. He smirked a little victorious smirk for all of two seconds before she got herself together again.

“That’s my ex,” she explained. “I was miffed my mates invited him and my mood was going south, but then you showed up, and I was like, ‘Yay! Someone who isn’t an arsehole!’ Apart from Ruby, of course, but she checked out mentally pretty early on in the evening.”

She was a terrible judge of character, wasn’t she? He’d been called much worse than that on more than one occasion. Once again Gold didn’t know what to say, so he allowed himself a moment to stare right back at that glowering young man over the edge of his glass as he took another ambitious sip.

“Wait. I assumed you were joking, but are you…”

Was he what? He looked at her and her face was paler. She subtly nodded towards the man by the door, and still he didn’t get it. He spent a few embarrassing seconds alternately blinking at Ms French and her ex-boyfriend, and when she slowly raised an eyebrow, her meaning finally caught up with him.

Oh, dear God.

“No! Of course not! I was joking!”

There he was, sweating bullets trying to hide the fact that he was completely smitten with her, and there she was, thinking he was eyeing her ex-boyfriend.

“Cause he’s bi, and I could totally introduce you!”

“Oh, no no no. No thank you,” he hurried, shaking his head. “It was just a joke, dearie. I’m not… I don’t… swing that way.”

“Oh.” Her eyes were wide and her mouth still slightly open as if she was still considering calling over that angry young man. But then she swallowed, blinked, slumped in her seat and offered a softly spoken, “Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” he assured her.

Was it very awful of him to be relieved that Ms French wasn’t immune to a bit of social embarrassment? He supposed it was, but whatever relief it brought him soon vanished when he noticed that she had hunched as if to make herself even smaller. It was a sight that made Gold’s old heart ache, so he put on his most reassuring smile for her and told her, “Besides, he’s far too tall for me, wouldn’t you say?”

She looked up. Slowly, her defeated pout turned into a smile, and then a grin, and she started to perk up like a flower blooming in spring. His poor, dumb old heart was getting one hell of a beating tonight, wasn’t it?

“If he’s too tall for you, he’s definitely too tall for me.”

He smiled back at her and found it easier, now. Much easier now that he’d seen her unsteady on her feet for just a moment. More human. Less mythical. She took her drink in her small hands and sipped carefully, and as he watched her, Gold began to think that perhaps this could work. This evening, that was. A friendly evening among colleagues. A bit awkward at first, maybe, but now he was beginning to feel the tension melt away from his shoulders and his tongue grow looser. He meant to ask her about her day and offer her a lifeline like she had him earlier, but before he could get the first word out, she slapped her hand on the table.

“Finish your whisky. I’m gonna get you another one. It’s your turn to embarrass yourself, I think,” she said, sliding out of the booth.

“You didn’t - ”

But she was off, and he was left with another two sips of his whisky left, still. Another quick glance to his left told him that that man was still staring, which was getting to be mightily annoying indeed. The boy must have been an absolute moron if he really thought that Gold posed a threat in any way, but he couldn’t help but feel a little flattered by his obvious jealousy. A spot of pity, too, for anyone who had had Ms French and lost her. Had he fucked up somehow? Had she gotten bored? Was he not a ruined man, now that he couldn’t touch her the way he could before?

Gold blinked into his glass and shifted in his seat, trying to stop that train of thought before it took him somewhere entirely inappropriate. Best to keep those pathetic thoughts and the resulting shame confined to his bedroom late at night and his shower in the morning. Lock them away and swallow the key - along with the shame. Gold downed the last of his drink when he saw Ms French come back from the bar.

“He’s still staring, isn’t he?” she sighed, sliding him his drink.

Gold nodded. “Doesn’t look like you’re on good terms,” he said, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Ms French smiled a tired half smile and shrugged. “He’s just annoyed I’m not interested in being friends. We were never friends to begin with, so I’m not sure why he’s so surprised.”

Gold nodded again and hummed an acknowledging noise, because he wasn’t sure what to say to that. Nor what to think of it. It seemed to him that there was a wealth of information in that statement, but he would have to mull it over later. During his walk, perhaps, when he wasn’t so distracted by her gloriously expressive face.

She sat and stared into her drink with that same half smile for a few seconds longer, then looked up to meet his gaze. “I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “Listen to me. Dropping you right into some boring ex drama.”

“Hardly dramatic,” he muttered. “Just a bruised ego, seems like. It’s fine, really.”

“Still, if you wanna balance things out by bitching about one of your exes, feel free.”

Gold snorted and shook his head. “I assure you I’m not going to do that,” he said, adamant.

“That’s disappointing.” She smirked and narrowed her eyes at him, and for a moment there, that fear from before was right back where he’d last felt it wrapping tight around his chest like a coiling rope. “Here I was hoping I could get to know you a bit.”

“There’s not much to know. I’ve lived a profoundly boring life.”

“I don’t believe you. I bet you’re keeping tons of juicy anecdotes all to yourself,” she teased, scooting closer to the edge of her seat with a wicked grin.

Gold smiled nervously and reached for his drink to keep from fidgeting. He was positively abusing this fine whisky, now. It was meant to last. Meant to be tasted in tiny sips and savored. Appreciated - not gulped down in an attempt to soothe his nerves so that he might appear to Ms French _not_ a nervous school boy; but instead a sophisticated man who wouldn’t in a million years be sitting there picturing his hand on her knee under the table.

The silence was growing fast, the pressure in his chest to spit out something trite that might lead to a safe conversation along with it. The relief when he remembered that he could still ask her about her day was tremendous, but when he opened his mouth to do just that, he felt something rustle the fabric of his trouser leg and brush against his shin, and his words scattered and left him to his own devices.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, smiling. “That was me.”

Gold hoped he was actually nodding like he thought he was. It was difficult to tell if that part of his body was following his commands when his physical self control was needed elsewhere. God, he was ridiculous. She’d merely uncrossed her legs and accidentally bumped her foot into his leg in the process. That was all. But his brain wasn’t telling his heart that, and so it raced and pumped his blood to dangerous places all the same. He’d never been as close to believing in some sort of benevolent omnipotent deity as when his silent prayers were miraculously answered in the form of a temporary reprieve of Ms French’s piercing stare when she slid out of the booth and chirped, “Bathroom. Be back in a jiffy.”

A fucking jiffy.

Off she went, leaving Gold to stare at the grain of the wooden table, preventively adjust his trousers and stew in his self loathing. If a mere accidental kick (which was exactly what had happened) was almost enough to make him hard even after a couple of whiskys, then a fucking breeze might do it, next. A cloud vaguely shaped like something obscene. A particularly good guitar solo, perhaps. What was he? Fifteen? He bit his tongue and thought of war casualties, of children with missing fingers toiling away under industrial revolution power looms and the terms of the Potsdam declaration until he knew that he was in the clear.

Oddly confident after this minor victory following near-disaster, he smiled right back at her when she sat back down at their table. He figured he could finally ask her about her day, now, but then she muttered, “Hold on a sec,” reached into her purse and pulled out a little notebook and a pen. Gold watched with eyebrows knitted together as she scribbled something down, ripped out the page, folded the paper in two, then held it out to him.

“It’s my number,” she explained when she noticed his hesitation. “In case you ever need it.”

“Admin has everyone’s contact details,” replied Gold. “I could just ask admin.”

She looked even more confused than he _felt_. She blinked her beautiful blues at him for a few seconds and slowly began to frown.

“Yeah, but… Just take it.”

He supposed he had to, now, before her look translated itself into words and she actually _told_ him what a fucking socially inept weirdo she thought him for letting her hand hang there in mid-air for that long. If she told him that, then he would want to tell her he really wasn’t like that with anyone else; he was curt and difficult maybe, but no-one turned him into a bumbling fool like she did.

And that was out of the question.

So he meekly took the folded piece of paper from between her dainty fingers and slipped it in his jacket pocket, and it was exactly at that moment that it occurred to him that perhaps Ms French was trying to make that poor sap by the door even more jealous. It wasn’t that he was above being an accessory to something like that, but the man did look like he could throw a mean right hook. Gold glanced over at where he had last seen him, but he was gone, curiously enough. He hadn’t noticed him leave. Ms French must not have noticed, either. What a waste of a good move, poor thing. It really didn’t seem like she’d noticed, because she was looking rather pleased with herself, grinning at him like that.

“Do I give you my number now, or…”

“Apparently, I can just ask admin,” she sighed.

“So… no?”

“Oh my God,” she groaned, throwing her grinning head back to cackle up at the ceiling. Right back to making her laugh by accident, then. Ah well. It sounded just as lovely. “Yes, Gold. You give me your number now,” she said, her voice deeper, sending a chill down his spine.

A dry “Alright,” was all he could manage.

“Or you could just text me, and I’ll save it.”

He decided to go with whatever she suggested. It seemed that that was the safest thing to do. He reached into his coat pocket for his phone, wondering how and when in the hell he’d gotten so useless at dealing with a garden variety one-sided crush. Being a bit rusty was one thing, but actually consistently failing to even vaguely resemble an adult capable of the most basic of social interactions - well, that was just pathetic.

She held out her hand and said, “I’ll add my number for you.”

He simply nodded and handed her his phone, confident she’d know how to work it, hesitant to leave her hand hanging there for too long again. She unlocked it and the screen lit up her face.

“No passcode, huh? You’re the trusting sort?”

“Of course,” he lied.

She smirked and moved her thumbs over the screen quicker than his ever had. What was he supposed to do with her number on paper, now? Obsolete, like his paper dictionaries and map books. Another thing those books and this little piece of paper had in common was the fact that Gold would be just as difficult to part with either. He would probably end up using it as a bookmark or something.

“Nearly done,” she sang, getting up from her side of the booth to smoothly slide into his.

“What are you doing?” he asked, trying not to sound as alarmed as he was at her sudden proximity.

“I’m just adding a contact picture.”

“Wait, what - ”

But she was bloody quick with that phone of his. A flash and a click later, and she was showing him [the result of her little photographic ambush](http://kamdensl.tumblr.com/post/112086691371/remedial-french-chapter-2-she-held-out-her-hand). She was grinning in the right side of the picture with her charming whisky blush on her cheeks, and then there was him, staring awkwardly ahead as if she’d captured his first ever time seeing a phone.

“There you go!” she chirped, handing him his phone back. “That’s gonna pop up now every time I call.”

Every time? Was she planning on calling him more than once? And why wasn’t she moving back to her side? He scooted closer to the wall and hoped it would remind her to go back to her seat. If it didn’t, then at least he had just put some distance between them.

“Text me!” she urged him as she reached over the table for her glass and her purse.

“Oh, right. Yes. I’ll do that.”

While she got to work on that whisky, he texted her a simple hello as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast at all. Her purse chimed and buzzed, and pulled out her phone with a cheery, “There we go!”

She swiped at the screen and smiled. “Got it. Punctuation and everything.”

Did she have a problem with proper punctuation? Was this the new generation of English teachers, then?

“I’m just gonna put you in here as Gold,” she said, tapping the touch screen with her nimble fingers, “cause I heard you don’t like to be called by your first name.”

“It’s not a thing, it’s just…”

“It’s alright,” she said, waving his concern away. “I like it. Don’t mind if I give you a personalized ringtone later, though.”

“Do I want to know?”

She slipped her phone back into her purse and gave him a deliciously mischievous look.

“Spandau Ballet, obviously.”

He groaned and rolled his eyes, trying his best not to smile when he heard her giggle at his reaction. _Gold_. Of course. How could he ever have thought that awful joke would one day die. He reached for his glass and she reached for hers. For some reason, he felt a little less nervous, now, despite the fact that she was sitting close and radiating warmth.

“The look on your face tells me I wasn’t the first to make that connection,” she said, grinning as he finished his drink.

He snorted, took a dramatic deep breath and began to list off in chronological order every single time that song had been the punchline to a joke at his expense, starting from its release in 1983. As he went down the list, Ms French’s laughter became louder and louder, turned from giggles into a deep belly laugh that had him grinning and laughing along, too, and by the time he’d gotten to the most recent incident (the barkeep turning up the volume a couple of months ago and smirking at him until he noticed and looked up with a glare) his nerves were gone.

Conversation was effortless, now. Superficial, but that was good. Somehow, they were facing each other on the same bench, more or less. The both of them had twisted towards one another - she with her head resting against the wall, he with his elbow on the back cushioning so he could prop his head up with his hand and his fingers in his hair. He’d probably look a mess, later. He didn’t care. She was just as pleasantly buzzed as he was and he doubted she’d mention it.

Even when two drinks had turned into three drinks and suddenly her hand was on the arm he’d carelessly draped over the sticky table, he didn’t panic. His first instinct was to look and make sure he wasn’t imagining it, to have some sort of visual to go with the memory of her touch near his wrist, but he knew that if he did that, she might realize she’d done it and she’d pull away. The touch had to be enough.

“Can I come?” she asked.

He couldn’t help it; he looked down. She pulled her hand back. Just as he’d thought. He swallowed, his mouth dry again.

“What do you mean?”

“Weren’t you going to go for a walk?”

Oh. That was right. That was his plan before she drew him into her orbit. He shrugged and muttered, “If you like. It’s nothing special. Just to the water and back.”

She smiled. “That sounds perfect. You might be headed my way, then, anyway.”

He watched her clamber out of the booth and wished he had been at the end instead of her so he could have helped her up. But she seemed steady on her feet, which was a blessing, because he didn’t want to find out that he’d gotten her paralytically drunk. (Never mind the fact that she’d paid for and fetched the last two rounds.) He grabbed his cane and made sure to make it to the door before she did so he could open it for her. Do _something_ right, at least. She smiled and he followed her out, wondering for just a split second if she’d forgotten to say goodbye to her friends, but then the cool air hit him and his mind reset itself. Just them, now, and the night.

This chilly nighttime breeze was a relief. The sky seemed taller than it did before he walked into the bar. A handful of lonely clouds moved west in a slow procession high up above, painted silver by the moon somewhere he couldn’t see. Stars dotted the dark blue. To his right, the way to the harbor. To his left, a smiling young woman with her hands dug deep in her coat pockets.

“This way.”

There was just the sound of their footsteps and his cane tapping concrete for a while. No traffic, no seagulls.

“You know, I was really relieved to find out I wasn’t the only one with an accent on my first day,” she said.

He caught her smile from the corner of his eye but stared straight ahead, remembering that moment when he’d asked her to move from his chair like a spoiled child. After he’d swallowed down the shame of the memory, Gold replied, “When you arrived, I was looking forward to splitting the terrible impersonations between the two of us.”

“But they’ve doubled,” she laughed.

“Exactly. But I’m used to it. They have the decency to mock me behind my back, at least. That’s something.”

“Lucky you. Do you have any idea how creative these kids can be when they make it their personal mission to fit as many references to marsupials in their essays as they possibly can?”

Gold raised his eyebrows and tried to bite down on his grin. Marsupials. Brilliant. He tried to disguise an escaped chuckle with a feigned coughing fit, but it was too late. He was laughing, now. He couldn’t help it.

“You think that’s funny, do you?” she cried in mock dismay, crossing her arms over her chest and nearly bumping into a lamp post because she was trying to glare at him.

“Well. I can’t say I wouldn’t have joined in if I’d had you for a teacher. I was an insufferable twat at that age.”

“Yeah?”

He looked at her and she’d scrunched her nose up as if she didn’t believe a single word he’d said.

“Does that surprise you?”

She made a thoughtful humming sound and chewed her lip, making a big show of staring him down with narrowed eyes as if she were x-raying his skull to see what kind of creature was trying to claw its way out.

“I’m not sure.”

It was a strange sort of silence. Not uncomfortable at all, even as she kept up that look for a little while longer.

“I’ll get back to you on that,” she decided, smiling and nodding to herself.

There was nothing but the sound of water babbling pleasantly against the quay, and, of course, their small talk interspersed with harmless silences as they walked past boats like giant shadowy turtles sleeping in the water. Once they’d made it out of the harbor, she told him she could find her way home from there, but he insisted he go along with her to make sure she got home safe. He didn’t actually mention that last bit, though. Just told her he’d head her way for a while, and she didn’t object.

‘A while’ turned out to be ‘all the way to her apartment building,’ but she wasn’t mentioning it, which was a relief. She stalled right in front of a little iron wrought gate that had gotten so bent over the years that there was no way it would ever keep anyone out. Beyond it was a tiny front garden with an actual garden gnome, and reaching proudly up in the dark night sky was a charming old building painted a faint baby blue. Cute.

“I’m glad we ran into each other,” she said, her soft voice luring his eyes away from the architecture and to her smiling face. “This was fun. Right?”

“It was. I especially liked the part where you were raring to set me up with your bitter ex-boyfriend.”

She giggled - a stark contrast with her carefree guffaws at the bar - and looked down at her shoes. He liked the way that movement made a few locks of her hair slip from behind her ear. It looked soft. Her hair, that was. Although her ear looked soft, too, but that was an odd thing to think. Very serial killer-esque.

“Well, to be honest,” she murmured, smiling shyly and looking down at her fingers as she fidgeted with a button on her peacoat, “I wasn’t exactly _raring_ to. Willing, sure.”

Ah. There it was.

She wasn’t over him.

Well.

That heavy feeling in his stomach was spectacularly asinine. It didn’t matter if she was over him or not. It’s not as if she would be interested in _him_ if that idiot were out of the picture. She was just trying to make friends.

“Never mind,” she laughed, shaking her head and smiling her embarrassed smile. “I should head inside.”

And then she stepped closer (bit of a wobble,) grabbed his shoulders for balance, craned her neck and kissed him on the cheek. It was quick, friendly, harmless, but wet because she’d been worrying her lip with her tongue and teeth all night.

“Thanks,” she said.

“What for?”

“Cheering me up. Saving the evening. Walking me home. Making me smile so much my face hurts.”

“Oh. You’re welcome. I mean, sorry about your face, but…”

She giggled and nodded, but still she didn’t turn and leave him to limp all the way back home. He wanted to tell her it had been ages since he’d had so much fun. He wanted to ask her if she wanted to come along next time. He wanted to kiss her cheek in return.

He wouldn’t.

So he forced himself to say, “Good night, Ms French.”

“Good night, Mr Gold.”

She pushed open the garden gate and it squeaked in exactly the way Gold had imagined it would, which was rather satisfying. He was about to walk away when he saw her turn around and pull the gate back open ( _squeak_ ) and before he knew it, she had grabbed him by the shoulders again and kissed his other cheek.

“Symmetry,” she said with a serious nod.

That didn’t make any sense, but he didn’t care. She’d kissed him twice. If he’d had a little bit more to drink, perhaps he would have had the courage to return her kiss, then return that second one, too. Balance. Symmetry. Whatever. He just wanted to know if her cheeks were as soft as they looked. But he still felt small and cowardly, and so what he did instead was smile as he watched her head on inside and close the door behind her.

He began to walk.

She was a nightmare. That was all he could think as he left her street and walked under flickering orange street lights. A wonderful nightmare. Attractive people with appealing personalities and tactile tendencies had no business worming their way into his life. There ought to be a law against them. Against Ms French, specifically, with her smiles and her touches and her _eyes_ and her fucking ex-boyfriend who was apparently close to having that prefix removed.

She was up in her apartment absolutely not thinking about him, while he was envisioning long summer evenings with a bottle of red, trash talking pupils and colleagues and laughing so hard his sides were sore when he woke up the next day and stretched and cringed in pain and saw her beautiful face on the pillow next to his, smiling because her sides were sore, too, and -

Oh dear.

He was walking just a little bit faster than usual, even with the wind trying to slow him down. That often happened back in the day, when he’d had a good night and he still felt the fading remnants of a buzz in his limbs as he walked home from the pub. Sometimes, he even started running. It always felt amazing, and he was never scared to trip and break his face. Wasn’t much there to break that didn’t look broken already, he always figured. None of that now, of course. He wasn’t going to break out into a sprint. There was just that itch and the memory. Nothing more.

When his pink house came into view, Gold realized that Ms French really did work wonders on his mood, even if she was steadily getting him into more trouble than he could trust himself to handle at his age.

He had always believed that he didn’t need much in life. Peace and quiet, beautiful things with which to decorate his house, quality historiography and good food, maybe. People hadn’t really factored into it ever since his marriage had fallen apart and his son had flown the nest.

But perhaps, if he could learn to stop wanting her the way she didn’t want him, he could make some room for her company in between his expensive bits and bobs, his dates and his treaties, his walks and sleepless nights.

He fit the key into his front door on the first try, which was excellent. He hadn’t had the heating on all day and it was cold inside, but his face still felt a little hot from the drinks and perhaps her kisses.

Tea. Tea for sure. Chamomile, in the hopes of calming his buzzing mind down somewhat. In his kitchen, waiting for his copper kettle to whistle, he caught his reflection in the shiny oven door like a black mirror and saw a curious sight. He was smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I linked to it in-text, but [I will leave this link to the amazing kamden's drawing Belle's picture with Gold right here too](http://kamdensl.tumblr.com/post/112086691371/remedial-french-chapter-2-she-held-out-her-hand). Thank you. <3


	3. Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gold continues to miss clues like Scully misses UFOs hovering right behind her, but he accidentally makes a friend along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sleepy. You're all really neat. Thank you. <3

That Monday morning, Gold sat at his kitchen table by the window and switched between staring at a busy little blue jay in the garden and his phone right next to his coffee. He didn’t think much of that expensive thing. Every once in a while he used it to check the weather forecast, but what it was, in the end, was just a black screen that lit up whenever someone needed something from him. (He was delighted when he found out that he could silence it.)

He had spent the day before trying not to look at that picture too often. It was just that her pretty eyes and her cute nose right next to his confused old face made for a strange composition, that was all. All day long, he had half hoped she would need his help with something and half hoped she would never _ever_ call him lest he have a heart attack. He threw quick glances at his phone all Sunday morning until he caught a glimpse of his stupid, hopeful face reflected in that expensive tiny black mirror and scowled. No more hopeful looks at his phone after that; he had put it on a side table on the other side of his study and got his nose back in his books. A useless Sunday.

Gold didn’t mind Mondays so much. On Mondays, he waited until he knew his son had been up for at least half an hour, then texted him good morning and wished him a good week. He would usually get an answer about half an hour later, when Neal was on his way to work. They didn’t chat on the phone too often, but Gold always made sure to let him know he was thinking about him. Neal did the same on occasion. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. The less he demanded, the more he got. Things had been much better between them since he’d figured that one out.

But he wanted to call him now that he had something to say and hear that glorious American accent he had worked so hard to attain. He wanted to tell him about the Australian whose students loved to make her read about marsupials. He wanted him to read far too much (but all the right things) into what he said and tease him sweetly for letting his guard down. Maybe he’d give him a call next Sunday. He never worked on Sundays.

Sometimes, Gold walked. Mostly he drove. Today, he wanted to listen to the radio, so he left early and took a detour to drive past the woods that skirted the town to the north. Pine trees for miles. Last winter, he’d seen a deer bound across the road just before dawn. Now that the sun was rising a little bit earlier each day, the likelihood of that happening again was close to nil, but still he kept an eye out for movement by the side of the road. Just in case. When the radio signal got weaker and began to crackle pleasantly, he turned and headed straight for work.

He liked to get there before the students came filing in like a funeral procession. Sleep-deprived lambs to slaughter, the lot of them. Sometimes, he even pitied them, but then he would spot a poorly drawn cock scribbled onto a door frame, and he snapped out of it.

In the parking lot, he checked his phone and saw the message he’d been expecting.

_You too pops love you_

Gold smiled. How nice it must be to just put your words out there unconstrained by commas and periods and trust them to translate your sentiments all the same, he thought to himself. He heard Neal’s voice as he read it, _knew_ how he’d say it, and yet he could never trust his own words to do the same. He texted him back as quick as he could ( _I love you too, son._ ) and clambered out of his car with a groan, blinking against the pink and gold sunrise.

He’d arrived a little earlier than planned. There was just him in the silence and the golden light, but he knew that unless Ms French had changed her habits over the weekend, she was due to arrive soon, so he put the kettle on (a dreadful plastic electric thing) and picked out two mugs (each of them chipped), dropped two sugars in each and fished out the last two bags from the box. A quick check in the cupboard above the sink assured him he wouldn’t have to go out during lunch and get some from home. Still one box left.

Gold usually had coffee in his kitchen in the morning, then tea at work for the rest of the day. That was why the coffee in the teacher’s lounge was middling at best and the tea was quality; he’d insisted on the latter and didn’t care one bit about the former. Whenever he heard anyone complain about the coffee, he thought to himself, ‘Go and ask, then.’ But no-one ever did, so they made do with coffee that wasn’t nearly as good as the tea.

“Good morning!” sang the cheeriest English teacher the school had ever known.

“Good morning.”

And gone were the trees, the crackle of his car radio, his boy walking up subway steps and the deer in the woods. She’d walked into the room and brought memories of Saturday night’s warmth and whisky taste and long looks and laughter along with her, and there was no room for anything else. Would she bring it up, he wondered? Would she tell him if she slept well that night? Whether she had a bit of a hangover the next day? Gold looked over his shoulder and saw her dump her bag near her chair. She was wearing that antique white blouse he liked, with the dainty buttons like tiny gold ball bearings. He imagined she might start wearing brighter colors now that spring was slowly creeping up on the town. She seemed the sort.

The kettle clicked off and made him flinch and drag his needlessly lingering eyes back to the matter at hand - tea. He heard her walk up to him and suddenly there she was, smiling as she watched him pour, her fingers tapping a quiet rhythm on the counter.

“Did you have a nice Sunday?” she asked.

“Sure. How was yours?”

She handed him a tea spoon and dropped hers into her mug. It made a pleasant sound like a little broken bell. “It was alright. Bit boring.”

“I think that’s rather the point of a Sunday,” he said, crushing the swiftly dissolving sugar cubes with the tip of his spoon. “Makes the return to work a little less awful.”

She laughed and shook her head. “I think you’ve been doing Sundays all wrong. You don’t have to sit around all day and do nothing, you know.”

“Ah, but who’s going to stop me?”

A snort and a roll of the eyes was what he got for looking too pleased with himself. He watched her carry her tea to her seat before snapping out of it and following her with his. In about five minutes - perhaps ten - the other teachers would arrive, and there would be far too much chatter for Gold’s tastes. But for now, it was just him and her.

It was always slightly nerve-wracking, slightly exciting to be alone with her - especially now that there was this strange Saturday night in between them. Something out of the ordinary that didn’t fit in with the pattern they’d woven for themselves over the past months, like a knot in the yarn. Settled into their seats, they blew into their tea, stirred and sipped, and let the seconds tick away on the clock that hung over the door.

“I uh, I just wanted to apologize in case I was too obnoxious the other night,” she said softly, mumbling the last words into her mug.

“Obnoxious? Not at all.”

Why would she think that? How could she possibly think that?

“I know what I was like,” she said, nervous laughter in her voice. “You don’t have to pretend I wasn’t a bit… you know. Hyper. With the contact picture and everything. And the whole ex-boyfriend business…”

Still an ex, then, was he? Hadn’t wormed his way back into her graces yet? Good. Not that it mattered. 

He tried to smile at her, but she wasn’t looking. It looked as if Ms French really thought she’d embarrassed herself, and it hurt him a little bit to see her shoulders hunch again the way they had when he had to inform her that he _wasn’t_ looking to bed her ex-boyfriend. “It’s fine, really,” he said. “You weren’t obnoxious, I assure you. Please don’t…”

He forgot how he was going to finish that sentence when she looked up with a smile that made his words dry up. He licked his lips quick as he could and hurriedly added, “Don’t think so poorly of yourself. You were charming.”

His turn to look away, now. He couldn’t possibly have waited to see her reaction when he’d called her charming. What a ridiculous word. What a ridiculous thing to say. He ought to have just told her she was fine, they’d had fun, it had been a good night. But no - _charming_.

“That’s a relief,” she sighed. “I… I hope you didn’t mind walking me home either.”

“It was just a walk, Ms French. That was my original plan, after all.”

He smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. Instead she looked at him as if he couldn’t possibly have finished talking, yet, and his heart skipped a beat and his smile died a mercifully quick death. It was a look that made him remember oral examinations in dusty rooms jammed with books and maps and professors decked out in tweed and corduroy peering at him over horn rimmed reading glasses, and he knew that there was probably a better answer he could have given, but it was too late now, and just like those stuffy old men raised an eyebrow and silently scribbled something down in a marbled notepad whenever he gave an unsatisfactory answer, Ms French tilted her head to the side ever so subtly.

“It was a nice walk,” he tried, fueled by a certain sense of desperation he couldn’t quite explain. It looked as if that addition was _just_ enough for a passing grade, because even though her eyebrows were knitted close, the very corners of her mouth began to twitch in the beginnings of a little smile.

“Yeah. It was.”

Gold looked at the clock. They would still be alone for a little while longer. Perhaps he ought to just drink his tea in silence and avoid a repeat of whatever it was that had made her look at him like that.

“I forgot to ask your son’s name.”

There went that plan. “It’s Neal,” he replied.

“Neal? I like it. That’s a good name.”

“It’s his middle name. He’s not too fond of his first name.”

“Runs in the family, then,” she said, her smile curling slow. “Disliking your first name, I mean.”

“Oh. Actually… I hadn’t thought of that.”

And now, all of the sudden, those screaming matches with fourteen year old Neal made a lot more sense. Gold had thought it was a whim back then. A compulsive need to rebel. Those fights always would end with the word ‘hypocrite’ hurled at his head and a door slammed shut in his face, and Gold was always left standing there wondering how that word could possibly apply to him. Yes - Gold, the man who only went by Gold, chiding his son for wanting to be addressed in a certain, completely reasonable way. It was a miracle he hadn’t driven Neal away for good.

“I’ve always liked my name,” she said, her voice drawing his eyes away from his tea and back to her pretty eyes.

He liked it too, but he wouldn’t say that. Not unless she asked. “Is it just Belle? Or is it really Annabelle, or Isabelle?”

“Just Belle. Why d’you ask?”

“Curious, I suppose.”

“Do you like Annabelle better?”

Ah, and there it was. Gold smiled and shook his head. “No. Belle is good. I like names that begin with a B.”

It was true. He did. He didn’t know why, and he was aware that perhaps it was a little strange to have these particular thoughts about names that weren’t even his, but he felt he could let Ms French have that little nugget of weirdness just in case she still felt embarrassed. To help balance things out. As long as his big secret stayed hidden, she could have anything else she liked.

“Really?”

Gold shrugged. He had meant to look away, honestly, but she was grinning now, and then she laughed, but it was more of an amused huff, and yes - charming was the perfect word for her, and it was like being stuck in quicksand. Sometimes, it felt as if struggling against the effect she had on him would surely make him sink faster.

Too long. He’d been smiling back at her for too long, but luckily, in came the chattering gym teachers, and Gold could finally look away, safe. They were followed by Higgins, the school principal, and Gold thought it best to leave before someone remembered they had a favor to ask him. Higgins, most of all. She seemed to be under the impression that he owed her for letting him pick the tea in the teacher’s lounge and have the final say over any schedule adjustments.

“I’ll just be off, then,” he sighed, putting his mug on the table so he could push himself up from his chair.

“Yeah. Me too, in a bit.”

When he gave her one last look right before he left the room, she was digging around in her bag - for an apple and a book, probably. Gold didn’t even have to stick around to be certain of that. It was always an apple and a book.

…

Gold usually only ventured out of his classroom in between periods for tea or, more recently, to pretend his timing was completely accidental when he bumped into Ms French munching on another apple, waving from across the hallway as if there wasn’t a herd of teenagers in between them. He wouldn’t in a million years wave back while anyone was watching, so instead he nodded, and she crossed the sea of migrating adolescents like Moses parting the Red Sea.

Her _hey_ sounded a little tired already. He hoped she hadn’t caught a cold. There had been more than a few sneezing and sniffling kids in his class that morning, so it must have been going around. The mismatched pair of them kept to the wall, leaning against it side by side and avoiding the bustle as locker doors creaked open and slammed shut again.

“How are they today?” he asked, for lack of anything better to say. “Behaving themselves?”

“More or less!”

He decided to take that as a yes. Who would misbehave when they could just as easily sit back and watch her do her thing? They were lucky to have an excuse to stare, really, if you thought about it.

“But you, uh. You got a bit of chalk dust right here,” she said.

He looked down just in time to see her brush it off from the lapel of his jacket.

“Oh. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She smiled and clasped her hands behind her back. She looked a little bit like a punished child, waiting by the principal’s door to hear her fate. Particularly unrepentant, judging from the smile on her face.

“Why doesn’t your classroom have a whiteboard like ours?” she asked with a certain intonation and a look that didn’t do much to dispel that air of mischievous youth - her nose scrunched up, her eyes narrowed.

“I didn’t want one,” he shrugged.

Her mouth fell open and she gawked at him for a few very strange seconds. “And Higgins just listened to you? I couldn’t even get the old curtains back!”

“What’s wrong with the new curtains?”

She sighed and looked the most frustrated he’d ever seen her; her lips pressed together in a thin line as she gathered her words. “Well, according to her and everyone else who uses that classroom: nothing at all. I’m the only one who uses the projector there in the morning, and the new curtains do very little to keep the light out. It’s a bloody nightmare,” she blurted.

“Oh.”

“The kids can just about make it out, but it’s always such a hassle. I think I might buy some myself if Higgins doesn’t change her mind soon.”

“Have you asked her again? Sometimes she needs a little prodding.”

Ms French nodded. “She said she had been assured that the new curtains would do the trick. I invited her to come see how difficult it was to make out anything colorful or detailed, but she just blew me off again this morning.”

Speak of the devil. Gold frowned at Higgins as she passed, but she paid no heed and walked briskly on. He respected that woman - almost liked her, even, but she was as stubborn as him sometimes.

Another sigh made him look back at Ms French, who wasn’t looking any cheerier. She turned her pout to him and said, “And all _you_ have to do is snarl a bit and you get to keep your blackboard.”

Snarl? He was very close to objecting to that term until he realized that that was exactly how he’d addressed the matter. He swallowed and explained, “Yes, well, I _really_ didn’t want a whiteboard. You ought to try snarling. I hear it works wonders.”

“Only if you try a whiteboard,” she mumbled, trying hard not to smile. “The marker fumes make the time pass quicker.”

“Oh, I see,” he teased. “That’s why you’re always in such a good mood by the end of the day, isn’t it? You’ve gotten your fix by then.”

He was very pleased with her stifled giggle and the twinkle in her eye, but then suddenly her head whipped around like a deer hearing a twig snap just around the corner (if she’d had deer ears, they would have been perked) and Gold followed her line of sight.

Daniels and his friends, casting sneaky glances their way and mumbling hushed conversation that wasn’t quite hushed enough. He could make out a few words, but nothing that meant much to him.

“Impossible not to ship these two,” mumbled Fiona George, a tall girl with long red hair who often reined Daniels back in whenever he was about to cross a line that was very difficult to uncross.

“I fucking know, right?” cried Daniels.

Now _that_ he could understand. “Daniels! Language!” Gold barked after him.

“Sorry, sir!”

And off he scurried, his friends laughing and patting him on the back. Apart from young Ms George, who looked entirely as if she wanted to smack that boy upside the head. Whatever that girl was getting out of their friendship, it must have been good. They looked back once or twice before they disappeared around the next corner. Gold felt himself clench his jaw in frustration, not in anger. There was nothing more terrifying than a group of teenagers giggling about a joke you’re not in on - except perhaps Ms French very obviously trying not to giggle along with them. He studied her blushing face for a hint, his brow furrowed, not even bothering to hide his confusion.

“Did you get that?” she asked.

“Get what?”

“What Fiona said.”

“Something about a ship?”

She bit her lip but her grin broke free anyway, and she was clearly trying not to laugh. “Yeah. Never mind.”

Why was that funny? He lowered his voice to a near-growl and asked her, “Do I want to know?”

She took a moment to search his face for something. “Probably not,” she sighed. 

“I’ll just trust your judgement, then.”

The bell screamed that jarring sound he’d never gotten used to after all these years and cut short the conversation he was struggling to carry on. Good thing, probably. The more words he uttered, the bigger the chance of him saying something profoundly stupid.

Still…

She pushed herself away from the wall and gave him one last smile. “Talk to you later, maybe.”

 _Come back,_ was what he wanted to say. _Come back and tell me everything. To hell with teaching. Just keep talking to me. I’ll shut up and listen and you could talk as much as you like._

“Alright,” was what he said instead. “Bye, Ms French.”

He watched her walk away, apple in hand, a bounce in her step. His students were filing into his classroom, but there was something he needed to do, first. It was entirely likely that it would be bedlam in there when he got back to his classroom, but he would just have to deal with that later.

First: Higgins. She was usually a decent sort when she wasn’t trying to get him to do her job. Gold knew he could get through to her. He stuck his head past the open door to her office and knocked on the doorframe to get her attention. “The classroom at the end of the hall needs thicker curtains. Would you mind terribly making that happen?”

“At the end of the hall, huh?” she said, pushing back her gray hair from her face and pulling her reading glasses down for a moment.

“Yes, the end of the hall. Are you alright, Margaret? Hearing’s going, is it?”

She snorted, muttered, “She’s making progress, I see,” and looked back down at the papers on her desk as if he’d left her office already. Well, he hadn’t exactly entered it, still hovering in the doorway as he was, but still.

But wait. What?

“What was that?” Fifty percent question, fifty percent vague threat.

“Nothing at all, old friend. Nothing at all. Just an old woman talking to herself. I’ll see about the curtains if you take a look at the field trip budget.”

“Again?” he groaned. She nodded and held out a brown folder stuffed with brochures and spreadsheets, and Gold cursed those thin curtains, and Higgins, and the field trip, and his ridiculous _thing_ for Ms French, and himself most of all.

“Deal?”

Of fucking course they had a deal. He stepped inside to snatch the folder from her hand and shook his head disapprovingly.

“I’m not some financial wizard at your beck and call, Margaret. This isn’t in my job description.”

“It would be if you accepted the damn vice principal position. You’d even get paid for it!”

“We’ve been through this.”

“We have, and I understand why you refused before, but that excuse had a sell by date, Gold, and it expired years ago.”

He clenched his jaw and thumbed through the contents of the folder. Hm. This actually wouldn’t take very long, but he wasn’t going to let her know that.

“Just think about it. We could finally stop this sketchy exchange of favors thing we’ve got going for ourselves.”

“But isn’t this just so much _fun_ , Margaret?”

“Buzz off, Gold. I can hear your kids tearing up your classroom from here.”

Loud bangs, loud laughter. Great. Gold muttered a string of curses under his breath all the way out of Higgins’ office. Just great. Now he was going to have to shout.

…

On Thursday, Gold fucked up. He was surprised it had taken him that long, but that didn’t make it any less painful.

It happened when they were walking down the hall together, on the way to their respective classrooms in the morning. A girl clutching a stack of folders to her chest had bumped into Ms French as she tried to overtake her from behind and sent her stumbling shoulder first into a locker with an incredibly loud bang. It wasn’t the bang that made him snap. It was Ms French’s hiss of pain.

Furious with himself for being too late to reach for her arm and keep her from crashing into the lockers, he had lashed out at the girl and snarled something about a week’s detention instead. Ms French, smiling bravely even in her obvious pain, had put a hand on his arm for a second or two and gave him a pleading look, and he knew then that he had overreacted. Swallowing down his anger and his shame, he watched as she took the girl aside and told her that it was alright - no harm done. Gold had done everything right after that, for a little while at least. He’d breathed in deep, he’d nodded when Ms French suggested that perhaps detention wasn’t necessary (of course it wasn’t) and he’d even smiled at the trembling leaf of a girl in the hopes that he hadn’t shouted her nerves to bits.

That wasn’t the mistake.

No, that came later, as they sipped their tea in a rare free period for both of them. Ms French had made a harmless joke about his hair-trigger detention reflexes, and he had replied with something painfully asinine about not being able to rely on his charm to avoid having to discipline his pupils, and her smile had just vanished. Immediately - like it was a balloon and he’d cluelessly popped it with a needle. When she quietly asked him what that was supposed to mean, Gold couldn’t answer because every fibre of his being burned and screamed, ‘ _You fucked up, you fucking idiot_ ,’ and his stupid mouth wouldn’t close but neither would it produce the millions of groveling apologies he knew he owed her.

The rest of his day was lonely. She didn’t avoid him, but she didn’t seek him out, either. He kept catching glimpses of her talking to others and she was smiling at them, trying to sound cheery, but he knew. He knew what he’d done. He was too much of a coward that day to sit her down and apologize. He heard her walk past his door at the end of the school day and when her footsteps echoed out and the door fell shut with a creak and a heavy thud, he felt hollow and more alone than he had in months.

At home, he sat and stared at her number on his phone. He wished she would call and tell him what an idiot he was. Tell him exactly how he could fix this and go back to how it was. The longer Gold sat and wallowed, the more he began to understand that he had, essentially, made it impossible for her to believe that he respected her, which he _did_. He truly did, and that was why he wished he could reach into his bathroom mirror and beat some sense into himself.

He’d told her she had it easier than him. He’d told her with no hesitation whatsoever that the job was easier for her because of her beauty, and if anyone else had told her that and Gold had been there to hear, he would not have stood for it. Not in a million years. But it was him. _He_ had told her that, and he had said nothing else to her all day.

He felt sick. He didn’t eat until he realized his empty stomach wouldn’t let him sleep even if his guilty conscience took pity. In his bed, he ended up just staring at the ceiling and checking his phone every so often for a missed angry text. Not that he thought she would do that; he just hoped that she might, because an angry text would have been better than nothing. But she hadn’t called him or texted him once since they’d exchanged numbers, and Gold knew that she wasn’t going to start tonight, so he put the phone away and just… stared.

After an hour or two of watching branch-shaped shadows dance on his curtains, he got up, walked down his creaky stairs barefoot and shuffled into his study. Fully aware that it was probably a childish idea but not knowing what else to do, Gold searched his bookcases for something Ms French might like. A gift to go along with his apology if he was brave enough to face her tomorrow. But there was nothing there for her at all. Nothing that his tired eyes could see, anyway. There was only war, diplomacy and long dead civilizations in this room - nothing precious and colorful and alive like her - and whatever literary works he owned, he was willing to bet Ms French owned too.

He was close to giving up on the notion entirely when round about twenty past two in the morning, up in the top right corner of his antiquity shelf, Gold spotted something… well, gold. In one of his books on the Ionic order less often consulted, there was a bookmark. An old thing, but well preserved. It was a strip of woven silk in a colorful floral pattern with a gold tassel at the bottom.

Gold smiled as he held it between his fingers. It was meant to be hers.

So when he caught her alone in the teacher’s room on Friday morning and she gave him only the briefest, politest, saddest of smiles in greeting, Gold sat down next to her and cleared his throat. The clock ticked louder today. It couldn’t have been, but still it seemed to him that it was ticking louder, perhaps even slower, and it was making his palms sweat. He wanted to fix her tea, but he didn’t want the first thing out of his mouth to be something commonplace. No, he had to apologize. He had to do it before whatever they had slipped from his fingers more smoothly than that bit of silk in his jacket pocket.

She was reading. She wasn’t looking up.

“Ms French…”

He saw her swallow, but she didn’t look up from her book for a few more seconds. His heart beat madly in his chest until she looked at him, and then it stopped. Just stopped, honestly - that was what it felt like.

“For you,” he said, holding out the bookmark. His voice was hushed, dry. His hand was shaking. He knew she could tell, because the tassel was shaking, too.

Ms French reached out and took the tassel between her fingers. He let go and pulled his hand back as if he thought she might push his offering back in his hand and reject it altogether. But she didn’t do that. She held it in her palm, and he was breathless as he watched her thumb brush over a peony.

“I can’t accept this if it doesn’t come with an apology,” she said quietly.

Gold heard a hint of hope in her voice. It warmed his heart and made it beat faster. This was his chance, and he would take it. If he was going to lose her friendship, this was not be the way he would want it to happen. No, there were other terrible decisions involved with what he had in mind, and now was not the time for any of them.

“Of course,” he croaked. “Of course. Yes. I’m sorry, Ms French. I said something that was both completely wrong and truly hurtful. I made it sound as if you were less capable. That you have it easier.”

He wished he could read her. She was expressive and open, and even though he was terrible at guessing her motivations, he could usually sense her mood to some extent, but there was nothing, now. It was nerve-wracking. He licked his lips with his dry tongue and carried on.

“I implied… No - I _said_ your appearance makes your job easier, and that was awful of me. It was an awful thing to even suggest, and it is above all untrue. I like to think of myself as the sort of man who would never think or say something like that, but I did. I did, and I’m sorry. I respect you, and yet I offended you, and I…”

He sighed.

“I apologize.”

She was still looking at the flowers on that little strip of fabric in the palm of her hand and with a single finger traced the stem of a white rose and a chrysanthemum nestled snug against it. “I do have to rein these kids in, you know,” she said, her soft voice making him want to lean in closer, make sure he heard every word, every vocal nuance, every minute sigh. “I get headaches some days, like everyone else here. It’s not like I never have to raise my voice.”

Finally she looked up. There was a melancholy little smile on her face, and his fingers twitched to take her hands in his, so he wove them together in his lap instead.

“There’s always this honeymoon period where they’re the nicest kids and the best possible students anyone can hope for, but it always wears off. They get bored and they act out. It’s always been like that at every school I ever subbed at, and if you stay long enough you start hearing things in the hallway you never wanted to hear. Hormonal teenage boys being the little shits they often are, and you know they didn’t mean for you to hear most of the time, but…”

His heart hurt for her, and her silence made his apologies bubble up once more, from the pit of his stomach to his dry, dumb mouth, but then she reached out and put her hand on his arm rest like she often did to make sure she had his attention, and she said, “I was going to talk to you, you know. Eventually. I was going to explain to you why I was hurt. But you figured it out first.”

“I should have figured it out before I said it. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t think you inadequate, Ms French. Far from it. I know fully well what these young men and women are capable of, but I didn’t even stop to think that they would…”

His words piled up in the back of his throat and choked him, and the only thing keeping him from fleeing the room so he could go and get a hold of himself was Ms French’s sudden bright smile.

“Apology accepted.”

With two little words, she had rolled a boulder away from the hole he’d dug himself in, letting sunlight and air and birdsong in, and he breathed in deep and felt his fingers tremble in relief for just a second. Look at him. What a mess. Shaking when he thought he had ruined his chances of a friendship with her beyond repair and shaking when he had found out that he hadn’t. She really had done a number on him, hadn’t she?

“Thank you. Thank you, Ms French.”

“Well,” she said with a shrug, “it was a really good apology.”

“Was it?”

She made an affirmative sound in her throat. “I really love this,” she said, batting at the bookmark’s tassel with a single finger like a curious kitten. “Where did you find it?”

Really? That was it? Was it really done, now? She raised an eyebrow at him when his answer still hadn’t arrived about six seconds after she had asked the question, and he explained, “I found it in a book I bought in a charity shop back in Glasgow, when I was still studying there. It’s late 1860s, I think. Something like that. Silk.”

Her eyes widened and those pretty lips gave up on their smile to drop open instead. “Really? It’s been with you all this time, then? Went halfway across the world and over the ocean with you?”

“I suppose it did, yeah.”

“You’re not gonna have to start memorizing page numbers and dog-earing your expensive books, are you?”

In his study back home, there was a little piece of paper on his desk with her number written on it. Gold smiled and shook his head.

“No. I’ve got another one.”

“I’ll keep this one safe from now on, then.”

He didn’t even try to fight his smile, now. How could he not smile when he had fixed it? He had messed up, and then he had fixed it, and that was a wonderful thing. If his feelings of gratitude towards Ms French hadn’t been so intense, Gold might have felt a little bit proud of himself, too. For having done the right thing, somehow. For having wanted to. And that didn’t happen all that often - least of all when it really mattered, and oh God did it ever matter today.

“You had better,” he said with a serious nod, making her giggle.

…

In the empty darkened hallways that same Friday evening, Gold heard footsteps coming towards his classroom. It sounded like hers, but it couldn’t have been, because he knew she usually left long before he did, but then she actually showed up in his doorway with her bag slung over her shoulder, smiling and wiggling her fingers in her adorable idea of a wave.

“Hiya. I was hoping you might still be around,” she said.

Why was she still here?

“You’re in luck, then, I suppose.”

Her hair was down. It had been up all day. He could have sworn her blouse had been buttoned all the way up that morning, too. She was still smiling, but she looked a little tired, and he couldn’t help but wonder if everything was alright. He was going to ask her, but then she spoke up.

“Are you grading tests?”

“Yeah. Truly depressing stuff, today. They didn’t even bother.”

“You might need some company, then.”

Yes. Yes, he did. He’d missed her. He’d just seen her a few hours ago, and he had started missing her for the weekend already. But because Gold was never sure whether Ms French had the habit of sensing his loneliness and felt obligated to stick around, or whether she just enjoyed his company even half as much as he did hers, he said, “That’s alright, Ms French. I’m almost done.”

Her tired smile grew bigger. “Let me rephrase - I’d like to keep you company. Is that okay?”

Oh, thank God.

“Of course,” he replied, returning her grin before getting right back to striking through all sorts of creative but infuriating anachronisms and the more egregious spelling mistakes with his trusty red pen.

Gold had expected her to pull up a chair, but she just dropped her bag by the door, walked right over and hoisted herself up on his desk, placing her wonderful bum entirely too near for his admiring eyes not to stray for a fleeting moment. Yes, too close. Much too close, and she smelled like roses again, and she was smiling down at him, and he had work to do, for fuck’s sake! God, what was it about him that screamed, ‘Please invade my personal space with your attractive self!’ If she’d been wearing that dress she wore at The Rabbit Hole… He pushed his chair a little further under the desk in case his mind drifted too far, because she would have a bird’s eye view of the evidence if he didn’t.

“I’ve still got an apple in my bag, if you want one,” she said, motioning towards where she’d dumped her bag by the door.

“No thanks. Still haven’t gotten rid of those, have you?”

“Nope, and not for lack of trying. I reckon they’re multiplying at night.”

Gold snorted and tried to focus on the red ink his pen was leaving all over this test - not the way she shifted her weight on his desk ever so slightly as she talked.

“Bake a cake,” he muttered. “A great big apple cake.”

“I’ve never baked before. Is that what you do in your spare time, then? Sit at home on a Sunday and bake apple cake? Cause you need to bring some to work and share if you do.”

“Never baked a thing in my life. I cook for myself, but that’s it.”

“You _know_ ,” she started, doing that thing where she swayed side to side a little bit to the almost musical lilt in her voice, “some people do that for a date. Cooking classes, baking classes, that sort of thing.”

So many dates. So many wars and abdications and inventions, assassinations and pacts and disasters. Gold liked dates, but on this particular Friday evening, he was well and truly sick of seeing them abused. It was as if they _wanted_ to fail. The only date they ever bothered to remember was that of the French revolution, and that was hardly a fucking feat, was it? He had seen so many erroneous variations on a single year that he had started to doubt himself.

“Do they?” he asked absently, only half-aware of what she was going on about. To be fair, he _had_ told her that he was busy grading.

“Yeah! What do you think?”

“If that’s you and your gentleman friend’s idea of fun, well, who am I to judge?”

What a dramatic sigh that was! Was he boring her already? Well, it was unreasonable of her to expect him to be a decent conversational partner when he was trying not to fail an entire class. He was nearly done, though, and if she would just be so kind and patient to undergo his dullness for a few seconds longer…

There. He scrawled a great big C on the last test and leaned back in his chair, his hands folded over his stomach. “Why haven’t you gone home yet, Ms French?” he asked her, keeping his eyes firmly glued to hers, not her legs crossed and dangling from his desk a little too near his thigh for comfort.

“Just some parents wanting to talk to me,” she shrugged, picking up his red pen and putting the cap back on.

Gold raised a single eyebrow. That still didn’t make a lot of sense. “They kept you this late? Really?”

She put the pen back neatly by the stack of tests, pushed at it with her finger until it lay perfectly parallel to the paper, then shrugged again.

“Ms French,” he said, waiting for her to look at him. When she did, she smiled, but his heart sank, because she looked truly exhausted, now. “Did they give you any trouble?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she assured him. “Just got tied up, that’s all. Not in the fun way.”

Not in the -

Welp. Time to go, then. Gold forced a laugh, pushed his chair back and began to gather his things in his satchel.

“Have you finished?” she asked, her brow furrowed as she slid off the desk, miraculously, _thankfully_ preventing the fabric of her skirt from riding up as she did so.

“Yeah. Headed home now, I think. I’ll walk you to your car, if you like.”

“Oh. Alright, yeah.”

She waited by the door while he gathered the rest of his things. (The red pen went in his pocket. Always.) Not a word was spoken as they made their way out of the building and onto the parking lot. The sun had set low and it was getting dark. If he took that very same detour he took that morning and drove past the woods again, it would be dark when he got home. It might help him fall asleep. The way she dropped her car keys twice and cursed softly under her breath each time before she managed to open her car door made him think that perhaps Ms French would have an early night, too.

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” he asked her right as she was about to settle into the driver’s seat. She turned around and gave him a curious look.

“If there’s trouble, I mean,” he clarified. “I might be able to help.”

The wind blew her hair in her face for a moment, and he heard another interesting word muttered under her breath as she tucked her hair back behind her ear and plucked another loose strand or two from her lips, using her tongue to push them out of her mouth, sputtering most inelegantly. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Poor thing.

“Yeah,” she said, putting on a brave smile despite the mess the wind had just made of her beautiful hair. “Don’t worry. I would. And hey, Gold?”

“Yes?”

“I would have accepted that bookmark even if you’d kept on being a jerk,” she said, a teasing tone to her voice.

Gold laughed, grinned, tried not to let her deeper voice stir something within. “Really now?”

“Yeah. But I’m glad I get to keep the bookmark and the friend.”

A sudden flock of seagulls screeching in the sunset sky almost drowned out the sound of his voice when he replied, “As am I,” but her little nod and her smile let him know that he was good.

They were good.

Apart from the sad fact that he was falling head over heels for her, of course.

But mostly good.


	4. Livestock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ms French shows up on his doorstep. Another whisky Saturday, but different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally 11k'd it.

When his doorbell sounded that rainy Saturday evening, Gold went through a strange series of thoughts and emotions. First came surprise, swiftly making way for annoyance. Then came a quick flash of curiosity and a fleeting, ridiculous moment of hope that perhaps it was Ms French, followed by complete shock when he opened the door to find her actually standing there, her big blue eyes looking up at him with a smile as uncertain as a candle flickering in a drafty room.

“Ms French…”

“Hello.”

She was wearing a flimsy excuse for a raincoat with a hood that couldn’t tame her flowing hair. Jeans and sneakers, too, which explained why she had to crane her neck more than usual. She truly was tiny, wasn’t she?

“I got your address from admin.”

He could hardly hear her over the rain. She looked cold.

 _Get your wee arse in here before you drown on my doorstep._ “Would you like to come in?” he asked instead, stepping aside and holding the door for her.

“Yeah, I would. If it’s not a bad time,” she said.

“Not at all. Come on in. It’s pouring. You’ll catch your death.”

She walked in offering more of her apologies, wiping her blue sneakers on his great big lie of a welcome mat. “I’m sorry. I could have called and asked if I could drop by, but - ”

“Never mind all that, Ms French,” he interrupted. “It’s perfectly fine. You’re not intruding.”

He pushed the door shut behind her and noticed that she was shaking ever so slightly. He wanted desperately to pull her into a hug and warm her up, but he sensibly clicked the heating on instead. She didn’t look that soaked, but she was shivering, for heaven’s sake, and his heart couldn’t handle the sight of it much longer.

“Where do I…” she started, slipping out of her coat and looking for a place to put it. Gold swooped in, took her coat from her and hung it over the back of a chair near the radiator in the hallway.

“Thank you.”

That was when he heard the little tremble in her voice, and he knew that it wasn’t just the cold. Something was wrong, and that urge to pull her close and hold her came back with a vengeance. He felt it in his limbs - a pull he had to fight to resist.

But see, now that she was out of her heels and much, much shorter than him, Gold felt strangely less nervous in her presence. He wondered whether it was some sort of misplaced protective instinct he could imagine Ms French inspired in all those who had grown fond of her. Whether that lack of nerves was a good thing, however, remained to be seen - nerves kept him on his toes and at a safe distance. Nerves actually came in quite handy sometimes.

“Living room’s through here,” he said, leading the way. “Sit down anywhere you like. What would you like to drink? I can make you some tea. Or anything else you like, really. Just name it.”

He briefly considered listing every kind of beverage he could possibly conjure up for her, but it didn’t look like she was listening. In his living room, she walked with slow, small steps and looked around with her mouth open as if drinking in the sights. Gold felt momentarily embarrassed by the state of the place. It wasn’t messy, really, in the strictest sense of the word, but there were plenty of things a less materialistic person would have stuffed in a box in an attic or listed on eBay. Little copper statuettes, empty gilded picture frames, fireplace tools by the fireplace he barely ever lit, shark tooth fossils and butterflies and beetles pinioned and framed. Things. Just lots of things.

“I really love your house,” she said.

Gold thought that a curious thing to say when she hadn’t even seen half of it, but it sounded oddly sincere.

But had she heard him just then?

“Ms French? What would you like to drink?” he repeated.

“I, uh. I could use something a little stronger, actually, if it’s no bother.”

He smiled and nodded, relieved that she had been the one to suggest it. Gold didn’t know what the protocol was in a situation such as this, but when someone showed up on your doorstep shivering, the thing to do was to offer them something eighty proof at least, was it not? Eighty proof seemed about right.

“Please, sit down. I’ll be right back.”

He kept his drinks cabinet in his study at the front of the house, where he did most of his drinking. Alone for a moment, he simply stood there and did nothing but try to process the fact that Ms French had actually shown up at his house. She was sitting on his sofa, or in his chair, or wherever else she’d chosen to park her bum. Here, with him. Better snap out of it. Better head back. He gathered two tumblers and his most expensive whisky. Better take the bottle with him, too.

He poured her her drink in the living room where he found her sitting with a tasseled cushion on her lap, her fingers nervously playing with the red strings, her back completely straight and her legs pressed together. Stiff as a board to keep from trembling, probably.

“Here you go.”

She took the tumbler of whisky from him with muttered thanks and wasted no time gulping half of it down straight away. Jesus. Even he would have cringed at the taste of that. He poured himself one too, then sat down in his favorite chair opposite the sofa, his beloved clawfoot coffee table in between them. And then he simply sat and waited for her to gather her words, or her courage, or her anger, or whatever it was that seemed to be consuming her so, and lay it all down at his feet so he could kick it under his persian rug for her.

He felt a little sick, not knowing what had upset her. In her silence, his mind was beginning to churn out awful scenario after awful scenario, so before that dread in his stomach grew too heavy to swallow back down each time it rose in his throat like bile, he asked her, “Is everything alright, Ms French?”

She looked up, smiled, nodded, then changed her mind and shook her head, and then all at once, with her voice shaking ever so slightly and her restless fingers digging into the little cushion, her story came spilling out.

The parents who had kept her late on Friday had cornered her after class, and complained that the extra work Ms French assigned their son to help get his grade up was interfering with his extracurricular activities. They wouldn’t listen to her explanation and kept demanding she lessen his workload. They’d only left because their son had practically dragged them out by the scruff of the neck. (“Completely mortified, poor Gerald!”) 

Today, they had cornered her in the produce section of the supermarket, and without their son there to rein them back in, the brakes had gone off. They caught her completely off guard, made her lose her composure and upset her greatly. The pair of them had tag-team bullied her, essentially, until a security guard got in between, and Ms French had simply left her shopping basket in the middle of the aisle and left, distraught.

And now she felt like a coward. Like a child, she said. She’d been afraid to go straight home because she didn’t want them showing up to her apartment, too. She’d gone to see her friend Ruby, but she had to leave for her night shift, and that was when she decided to come see him. She’d walked, even though it had been raining all day, because walks always helped her calm down whenever she was upset.

Gold listened and nodded, watched her shivers settle down and make way for impassioned gesticulating the further she got in her story. She wasn’t frightened, it now became clear. She was angry.

“And the thing is, Gerald’s not a bad kid!” she cried. “He’s not stupid! He really isn’t, but his parents are sabotaging everything I do to get him to put the bloody effort in. I’m trying to help him and they just…”

She made a frustrated sound like a puppy struggling to reach a tennis ball rolled just out of her reach under the dresser. For lack of anything useful to say, Gold motioned towards the bottle of whisky, and when she muttered an angry but very polite, “Yes, please. Thank you,” he poured her another one.

“I can’t bloody well give him As for doing a crap job, can I?” she continued. “It’s extra credit, not a punishment. But they don’t get that. They’re screwing over their own son and they’re going to blame it all on me in the end.”

He nodded and handed her her drink. She took a few smaller sips this time, which was a relief, because that first glass had gone down rather smoothly, hadn’t it? It gave him the time to think of something to say to all of that that wasn’t a series of violent acts to which he would like to subject these people.

“It never fails to astound me how easily some people take the kindness of others for granted.”

She gave him a confused look over the rim of her glass and told him, “Kindness doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s my _job_ to get that boy through high school.”

In her delayed indignation, Ms French’s pout and angry frown combination was particularly endearing, and Gold felt a little bit guilty for even thinking that. He bit down on his smile before she had the chance to catch it. “That’s a very generous interpretation of the job description.”

“Well, it’s the only one I’m interested in.”

And now he really couldn’t help but smile. She was a rare creature, Belle French. A woman with a certain optimistic, altruistic core layered in wisdom and confidence. And sure, she’d shown up to his house shaking, but she’d had reason to, and that didn’t make her any less competent. Being shouted at in your spare time by a pair of insane helicopter parents was not by any stretch of the imagination something a teacher should reasonably be expected to deal with.

“He should start showing improvement soon,” she said, nodding to herself, swirling the whisky with an absent smile. “He already has, so if I can just keep getting him to do the work, they’ll see. I know they will. And I’m going to tell them that next time I see them. I’m not going to let them intimidate me like that anymore.”

She wasn’t naive. Not vulnerable, like he thought when he first walked by her classroom and caught a glimpse of her leaning over a dejected looking student’s desk with nothing but concern in her eyes. And of course, there were plenty of other kind-hearted, well-meaning teachers in the world, but if the kids didn’t wear them down, the depressing nature of the educational system would, and he couldn’t really see that happening with her anymore, now that he’d seen the fire in her eyes. She would be fine, this one. This one bit back. This one needed just to vent and down a glass of something strong, and she would be back on her feet in no time.

“I’m sure you will.”

That pillow she’d been holding on her lap was flung to the other end of the sofa, now, and the tension melted from her shoulders with a sigh. “Honestly, thank you so much for listening,” she said. “I feel so much better already.”

“You just needed to vent, and I was glad to listen, so don’t you start apologizing again, Ms French.”

“I won’t,” she said with a little smile.

“I’m glad I was of some use. If you ever need me to talk to these - ”

She shook her head furiously and waved his offer away. “No, no. Thank you, but no thanks. I appreciate it, but I really just needed to vent, like you said. I can handle it.”

“Of course you can,” he said, and he meant it, but he made a note to pay Higgins a visit and inform her that her staff was being harassed either way. She would want to know. She wouldn’t stand for it.

With that weight off her chest, Ms French had fallen silent. Did that mean she was going to leave, now? It was still pouring out there, and the tips of her hair were still wet and there was still whisky in her glass, and he wanted so dearly to sit and enjoy the smile he had helped put on her face for a little while longer.

But then, it didn’t look like she was about to leave. In fact, she was taking her time with her drink now, taking a smaller sip.

“This whisky looks expensive,” she said, grinning shyly and nodding towards the bottle in the middle of the table.

“Does it?”

“Is it?”

_Very._

“Why do you ask?”

She bit her lip and with a curious smirk lilted, “I was just wondering… If you don’t have anything planned for the night, could we maybe… drink far too much of it?”

Gold raised a single eyebrow and watched her cheeky smirk blossom into a grin. Was she seriously sitting there asking him to get drunk with her? Was there a parallel timeline in this universe and the next in which she thought even for a moment that he would say no to that?

“Would that make you feel even better?” he asked, feeling the beginnings of a smirk tug at his lips.

“In the short term, yeah. It really would.”

Gold sighed and pretended to think it over, even though he’d already made up his mind. Spending time with Ms French away from the structured school environment was a little bit like walking a tightrope over a crocodile infested moat just because there was delicious cake on the other side. (Apple cake, probably.) It was a terrible idea, but also strangely enticing - and just try and stop a desperately hungry idiot like him when there was alcohol involved. Watch him try and fail and be torn limb from limb in the end.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he decided.

“Really? It’s not expensive, then?”

He gasped in mock dismay, making her giggle deliciously. “Of course it is!”

God, this was a terrible idea. This was an _amazing_ idea. He pushed himself up from his chair, reached over the table, took her almost empty glass and proceeded to top it up generously, then did the same for himself.

“Now that you’re up, come sit next to me,” she demanded. “That chair of yours is practically in the other room!”

He nodded meekly and sat himself down at the other end of the sofa. She took her glass from him with a cheery, “Thanks!” and scooted a little closer in the process.

And what now? Exactly how drunk was she looking to get, here? What were they going to talk about? Was the conversation going to be very awkward until they were both too drunk to care? Gold racked his brain for something to talk about that wasn’t the weather and definitely had nothing to do with pushy parents, either, but all he could think about was how close she was, and how lovely she looked.

But Ms French came to the rescue herself and asked him, “Why do you always stay late?”

Good. That was good. Safe. “I like to get everything done before I go home,” he replied.

“Oh, I see. You don’t like to take your work home with you.”

“Indeed. I’m very selective when it comes to letting things in my home.”

“Well, consider me flattered!” she laughed.

“Things, Ms French,” he growled in feigned disapproval. “I was talking about things. Both physical and abstract. Not people.”

“Are you telling me you would let just about anyone in, then? If Ben showed up? Or Sarah? Jackson? Carol? Higgins? Would you break out the expensive booze, then?”

Never mind. Not safe. Unsafe. Wildly unsafe.

She was grinning like the devil, and his face was getting warmer, and he felt the sudden need to retreat to his chair, but he didn’t _want_ to. Not really. So he just shrugged, smirked through his nerves and let her draw her own conclusions, which was probably his most asinine decision of the night. Hopefully. Because the night hadn’t really started yet, and yet here he was already letting his guard down.

“How was your Friday?” he asked her, hoping she’d take it from there and talk his ears off so he wouldn’t create too many opportunities for himself to say anything too meaningful and potentially embarrassing.

“Oh, you know,” she sighed. “I was pretty beat-up when I got home, so I just watched TV, had an apple and went to bed.”

“Still drowning in apples?”

“Well, yeah! You won’t help me eat them!” she cried with a whiny tone that made him smile despite his best efforts.

“Have you asked any of the other teachers?”

Her mouth fell open and shut again, and with the beginnings of an embarrassed smile, she said, “Didn’t actually think of that. But it doesn’t matter, cause now I’m set on getting you to help out, so next time I show up here, expect a massive monotonous fruit basket.”

“I’ll just add apples to the list of things I don’t allow in my house, then.”

“Yes, but what if I refuse to leave the basket outside?” she teased.

“Then you’d better bring an umbrella.”

She stared him down, grinned at him until he thought he was going to fall apart at the seams and confess his affections then and there, but then he had the good sense to counter her grin with a playful smirk again and pretend he wasn’t bothered. Not in the least, no. Ms French could stay out in the rain with her pretty eyes and her soft looking hair and those lips that if they pouted for even half a second could get him to do anything she wanted. Anything at all.

And he was an idiot, of course, to think he could win that particular staring contest. But then, to his surprise, he actually _did_ when her stomach growled so loudly and so hollow she looked down at her own belly in mild shock.

“Are you hungry?”

She nodded, finished her whisky and muttered, “Dinner’s still in that shopping basket.”

“You’re handling the whisky amazingly well, in that case,” he noted with the tiniest hint of admiration in his voice. He stood up and bit his lip to keep from groaning as his ankle screamed in pain. “Come along.”

“Where are we going?” she asked him, following him as he headed towards the kitchen.

“Where do you think?”

As if he’d let her swill his whisky on an empty stomach, really. He’d have twenty more minutes of conversation, tops, before he had to peel her up from the floor and _pour_ her tensionless body in a taxi at the rate she was going.

“Ooh! Are you making me a snack?”

“Well, I could make you a particularly sad salad with what I’ve got in my vegetable drawer,” he mused, blinking against the bright white light in his refrigerator. “But I did make soup, earlier. Would you like some?”

“What kind?” she asked, sitting herself down at his kitchen table.

“Cream of mushroom. Sound good?”

“Yes please!” she chimed.

“It’s not _that_ good,” he laughed, taking the little saucepan of leftover soup from the fridge and putting it on the stove. Low heat. Wouldn’t take too long to heat up, and he didn’t want to burn her late night dinner.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” she sang. “I bet it’s delicious.”

It actually was, but he wasn’t going to boast about that, now. He wanted her to carry on talking. “What were you planning on having tonight?” he asked her as he took a bottle of Chardonnay from the refrigerator. (He’d meant to have a glass or two himself with his dinner, but he’d abandoned that plan in favor of coffee instead, which had turned out to have been some excellent decision making.)

“Mushroom risotto, funnily enough. Are you seriously opening a bottle of wine?”

The cork went _pop_ and Gold began to pour two rather generous glasses. “Did you expect me to serve whisky with cream of mushroom soup?”

Ms French laughed and narrowed her eyes at him. “You just don’t want me drinking all of your expensive booze,” she teased, nevertheless mouthing a polite thank you when he handed her a glass.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that, dear,” he muttered. “The wine’s more expensive than the whisky.”

“That was just a joke!” she gasped. “Don’t serve me all of your expensive stuff! I was joking!”

She looked genuinely quite horrified, so Gold forced a cool smile and lied, “So was I.”

He wasn’t. He really, really wasn’t. He wouldn’t subject Ms French to the cheap stuff he kept in case of unwanted visitors.

“Oh, thank God!” she sighed, half collapsing on his kitchen table in relief. “Cause I’d feel really bad.”

“Yeah, honestly, it’s nothing special.”

Gold had the feeling that he was being particularly mendacious tonight. Lots of little lies to keep Ms French from leaving before he’d had the chance to regret inviting her in.

They chatted about wine and pretended to be interested in each other’s mushroom soup and mushroom risotto recipes respectively, until thankfully the result of the former began to bubble pleasantly, and they could put an end to that part of the evening’s pleasantries. He served her her soup in a simple white bowl and joined her at the table, hoping it wouldn’t be too strange to sit there and watch her eat while he himself did nothing but sip his wine. (If there’d been enough for two, perhaps he would have had a bowl himself.)

“Best soup ever,” she told him in between two spoonfuls.

“Oh, come off it,” he growled, grinning at the compliment regardless.

But still she kept telling him variations on that hyperbole every two spoonfuls or so, and he was already laughing the third time around, and when she didn’t show any signs of letting up, he was laughing so much he was starting to see what she meant that night he walked her home and she told him her face hurt from smiling.

When she finished up, she offered to wash her bowl and the saucepan and he mocked her roundly for assuming he wouldn’t have a dishwasher. She sheepishly admitted she’d actually forgotten that dishwashers were ‘a thing’ for a moment, and at that point he had to hurry to the bathroom or else he’d have pissed himself laughing.

When he got back to the kitchen, she sighed and asked him, “Can we go back to the living room? I miss your sofa.”

He was tempted to say it missed her too, but that was absolutely ridiculous and he wasn’t nearly drunk enough to say it, so he bit his tongue, and offered her his hand instead. He figured she would be a bit wobbly, now, what with the whisky _and_ the wine, but when her hand met his (warm, soft, small) she merely used it to push herself up, and then she was fine on her own. He’d half expected her to stumble about like a newborn gazelle, but she was still steady on her feet - a little more bouncy than usual, perhaps.

Good. That was good. He didn’t want the night to end that quickly.

“How are we doing?” he asked her. “Drunk, but not too drunk?”

“Just drunk enough, yes,” she replied.

She’d kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs up on the sofa as if she was always meant to end up there like that. She fit into that empty space just perfectly, and oh fuck, he was definitely drunk, because he’d gotten stuck into the stranger lovestruck thoughts a man could possibly have about the object of his affections. The way she fit into his sofa? Seriously?

Still, despite that warning sign, Gold didn’t even hesitate to sit down next to her this time. He rolled his sleeves up because the buzz had made his skin feel hot and a little sticky, and oh yes, that was right, the heating was on full blast. Did he feel her eyes on him, or was he imagining that? No, she was definitely looking. Was there something stuck to his face, or what?

“It’s okay to tell me to mind my own business, but can I ask you what happened to your leg?”

Ah, _the_ question. No preamble either. Most didn’t dare ask at all.

“Dislocated my foot and broke my ankle in three places,” he said, offering a smile as if that would help make it sound less painful, but still she cringed.

“That sounds awful. I’m sensing an anecdote.”

“You must be sensing someone else’s,” he teased. “Someone down the street, perhaps. If you hurry, you might catch it.”

“Aw, come on! Tell me!” she whined.

“Nope.”

“Please? Why not?”

“Because it’s a fucking ridiculous story!”

“Oh, go on! Now I definitely wanna know! If you pour me another drink, maybe I won’t even remember.”

Ah, that bloody pout of hers. Was she pouting for the drink, or the story, or both? Didn’t matter. He’d give her both. He sighed deeply, reached for the bottle and the tumblers they abandoned for wine glasses earlier and began to pour.

“Sheep,” he said.

“Sheep?”

“Sheep. Do you know what a cattle grid is?”

“Uh.” She stared up at the ceiling with her mouth agape as if the answer was written somewhere up there.

“When a road passes through a bit of fenced off land with livestock in it, instead of a gate, you might put one of those things there,” Gold explained. “Iron bars covering a gap in the road. Sheep won’t cross it cause their legs might go straight through.”

“Oh! I think I’ve seen a few of those back home!”

“So you can picture it, just about?”

She nodded, and he continued. “Well, my foot got stuck in one while I was running. Fell, dislocated my foot, ankle snapped.”

She cringed again and made a face that made him laugh - nose all scrunched up, mouth slightly open in disgust.

“Why were you running from the sheep?” she asked.

“I wasn’t running from the sheep!” he laughed. “Where’d you get that from?”

“What do you mean, where did I get that from? I asked what happened to your ankle and you said sheep!” she countered, her comical look of insult not doing much to still his laughter.

“Yes, well, I wasn’t running from the sheep.”

“Why were you running towards the sheep?”

Oh really, now she was just being difficult. He narrowed his eyes at her, wondering if she wasn’t a little bit more vulnerable to sustained piercing stares now that she was so giggly, and slowly her innocent look transformed into a smirk. Just as he thought. Being difficult. Cute and difficult.

“I was running away from the owner of the sheep.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d painted about a dozen of his sheep pink and he caught me in the act.”

“Really? Why would you do that?”

“Because I was an immature arsehole who’d lost a bet. I ran, I fell, I snapped my ankle like a twig, and when the farmer caught up he broke my nose and rightfully left me there to crawl back home. It took me hours and it started raining about half an hour in.”

“Oh my God!” she cried. “Three places, though! How hard did you fall? How fast were you even running?”

“The guy was absolutely massive and known to sucker punch people when he was having a _good_ night out, so pretty bloody fast, yeah. But it wasn’t the first time I broke it. Dragging it across cobblestones for a few hours didn’t help, either.”

She looked so concerned, nodding in agreement, eyebrows close together. How sweet of her. Rather useless, though, that particular expression of her seemingly endless well of empathy. It had happened years ago, and yet she looked as if he were telling her the story from his hospital bed, his ankle freshly snapped. She probably would have given him some flowers and a ‘get well soon’ balloon, too, had she had them on her person.

“What happened the first time?” she asked.

“Ah. That’s… not really a nice story.”

“Oh. Alright. Maybe some day.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” said Gold softly, flashing her a reassuring smile in the hopes of stopping her imagination dead in its tracks. And if not her imagination, her curiosity.

Because now wasn’t the time to introduce her to the memory of the deadbeat father he followed out of a first story window when his debtors came crashing in through the front door. (His father got away while they took him the hospital. Nice lads, actually, all things considered.) If she asked again, maybe pouted a little bit, he would surely cave and tell her, and the evening would be marred. He wouldn’t let that happen.

“You’ll forget about the sheep thing, won’t you?”

She put on that innocent look from before and blurted a ridiculously daft sounding, “What sheep thing?” and he was laughing again.

It was sort of nice to see her so at home. Curled up in a corner of his sofa, her shoes on the floor, her socked feet one little slip away from his left thigh and her hair a bit of a mess as she’d been playing with it during their conversation. His hair was probably messy, too, as they seemed to share that habit. He had his hand in there now, supporting his head with his elbow on the back of the sofa, looking down into his almost empty glass so he wouldn’t be smiling at her for too long.

“You’re a good friend.”

He did look up, then. She sounded a little hoarse all of the sudden. Her face was red, and he wondered for a moment if he should go and turn down the heating, but he didn’t want to move an inch, really.

“We haven’t known each other for that long. Shouldn’t you reserve your judgement?”

Ms French smiled and shrugged. “I’ll reconsider my judgement if you ever prove me wrong.”

Well, then. He’d accidentally made a friend. And she was lovely. The fact that he would quite like to swoop this particular friend up in his arms and kiss her lights out complicated matters somewhat, sure, but just as he’d gotten good at being on his own, he had gotten quite skilled at bottling up his feelings, Gold thought. The game would never have to be up if he was careful, and perhaps he’d come to his senses the more he got to know her. Perhaps he’d stumble upon one of those skeletons in her closet. There must have been _something_ about her that would make him go off her, romantically speaking. Something he was missing.

“Makes me wonder what it is I’m missing.”

He frowned, confused that those words had left her mouth, and not his. She looked so serious, now. She was staring at him as if he were a puzzle to solve, an optical illusion. A picture of a vase that turned into a picture of two faces nearly kissing if you only looked at it just right. Something like that, anyway.

“I mean, you’re intelligent, you’re funny, and you’re handsome. You seem pretty suspiciously well-off for a teacher, and you’re secretly kind of sweet, too, aren’t you?”

 _Handsome?_ The girl had her beer goggles on. Whisky glasses. Chardonnay contact lenses. That collection of terrible ex boyfriends made a lot more sense, now; perhaps she’d met them all drunk.

He shook his head, but it was only reflexive, and he bet she could tell, because she didn’t mind his half-hearted attempt to be down on himself and just continued. “So how come you’re single? What’s wrong with you that I’m not seeing? Or are you just happy on your own?”

He was glad his face was probably already red from the alcohol and the heat, because he knew he’d be blushing like a priest in a whorehouse, otherwise. _Handsome._

“There’s plenty wrong with me,” he muttered. “I’ve just gotten good at avoiding situations that bring out the worst in me. And I do alright on my own.”

She nodded, and he could tell his answer hadn’t really satisfied her curiosity. But really, what else could he have told her? Should he have gotten the divorce documents from the attic and told her to have at it? No. That couldn’t have been what she wanted to hear.

He was feeling braver, now that he was drunk. More confident, knowing he hadn’t bored her out of his house already. If she could ask him why he was single without any romantic implications, he could surely ask her the same, right?

“Your turn,” he said. “What’s wrong with you, then?”

She smiled, downed the last of her drink and plopped the glass back down on the coffee table as if it were a sippy cup. His heart skipped a beat - not for his glass but for her when she wobbled a bit, making him want to grab her by the ankles and anchor her, but she was back in her little corner of the sofa, curled up safe before he could even reach out.

“I’m stubborn, impulsive, unrealistic and too intense, apparently.” She listed these things with a bored tone. “That’s what I’ve gathered from all the post-breakup feedback I’ve ever gotten, so I guess that’s me at my worst.”

“Are you telling me people break up with _you_?” he blurted. Instant regret. Instant heart rate increase. Fucking idiot.

“Of course they do,” she said, grinning. “I’m the type to stick around when I ought to let go. Try when I should give up. I can turn a shitty relationship into an endurance test.”

“Ah, I see. That’s where the stubbornness comes in.”

“Exactly! It’s like… I don’t like giving up, you know?” she said, nodding furiously. “And I’m trying to work on impulse control, but it’s been a bit difficult, lately. I’m, uh… being tested.”

He stared at her, waiting for her to explain, but all she did was stare back for a moment. And then she giggled and threw her head back, shaking her head at the ceiling for some reason. Drunk. Very drunk. As was he. Drunk enough to keep asking questions.

“And unrealistic?”

She sighed, wiped a lone tear of laughter from the corner of her eye and shrugged. “No idea.”

“Too intense?”

“Aaaah, well… That was probably partly a matter of… drives.”

What? He stared at her pretty red face for a clue and got smacked in the face with another pang of regret when she saw her bite her smirking lip and raise an eyebrow suggestively.

“Oh. _Oh._ ”

“Yes,” she laughed, her voice deep. “Oh indeed.”

Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking -

Ah, to hell with it. The whisky had loosened his tongue and his shoulders and softened his edges, and he’d shown her too much of his truth already. He might as well make the most of it and satisfy his curiosity while he was at it. (As if he didn’t know fully well that that would come back to bite him in the ass.)

“May I ask you who in the name of God would break up with you over that? Was it the man at The Rabbit Hole?”

“Different disappointing ex,” she said, shaking her head. “And that’s an excellent question, the answer to which is a man with a madonna-whore complex the size of a house.”

She opened her mouth to explain when she caught his confused look, but he told her, “Hold on. I’m trying to figure this out on my own.”

She raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Alright.”

“Too intense…” he murmured, narrowing his eyes in thought.

“Not exactly the wording he used, but yes.”

“Madonna-whore complex…”

She nodded. “Mhm. Size of a house.”

And it clicked. “Ah. Wouldn’t think to buy the cow but wasn’t above getting the milk for free?”

Ms French guffawed loudly and slapped her hand in front of her mouth as if she’d surprised herself, and Gold was glad that if he _had_ crossed a line just then, she at least seemed to be tickled by it.

“Sorry,” he offered just in case.

“No, no! It’s pretty accurate,” she giggled. “Well, I mean, the cow was mostly annoyed because the farmer acted like he was lactose intolerant after going through gallons of free milk, you know?”

He nodded, eyes wide. He bit his tongue to keep from laughing, a tactic which failed miserably, and covering his mouth with his hand wasn’t working either, but Ms French didn’t seem to mind his amusement. She just carried on with her cow story, and Gold hoped she’d finish before he burst completely.

“You see, the farmer secretly thought he could never bring the cow home to meet his parents, but he neglected to tell the cow this for _months_ , and the cow was too stubborn to open her eyes and realize that the farmer was a hypocritical cow-hater.”

“I hope the cow kicked the farmer squarely in the bollocks.”

“No. The cow is not a fan of violence, but she did forward some colorful angry e-mails the farmer had sent her to his mother.”

“Good!”

He was sort of proud of her. Was that very odd? Did she see it in his smile? Oh, what did it matter. He’d already shown her too much of himself tonight. What did a little overt fondness matter when he’d already told her the thought of anyone breaking up with her was absurd to him. He was smiling at her the way he would never let himself had they been sober, the way he would never have done had they been at school. Whatever. They were drunk. It was alright.

“Oh my God,” she suddenly groaned, hiding her face behind her hands. “I’m getting way too chatty, aren’t I? God, and the ex talk again… What the hell’s wrong with me?”

“I’ll try my best to forget everything you said,” he said. Yet another lie. God, he wanted to reach over and poke her in the shin or something. Do something to stop her from hiding her adorable smile like that. Luckily, her hands fell away before the temptation got to be too much.

Ah, there she was again, like the sun from behind a cloud, only her face looked hotter. Twenty percent pout, eighty percent smile.

“It’s alright. If you’re not bothered by whatever nonsense I’ve been spouting, I’m not bothered if you remember every word.”

“Not bothered at all.”

Their conversation settled down after that. No ex talk. No exchanging of flaws. It was comfortable and effortless, and interspersed with bathroom visits increasing in frequency the later it got, and then at some point - must have been about three - Gold yawned. Couldn’t help it. He’d tried to stop it, but he’d been struggling for a while now, and the sleepy sea had reached his eyes and made them water, and he knew that it was obvious. He was tired.

And she knew. “Ah, I’ve kept you up too late,” she said, reaching out to put a hand on his knee for just a second or two. He stiffened under her touch (not in that way - thank fuck) and tried not to sigh in relief when she pulled her hand back. He hadn’t even noticed they’d gotten close enough for her to do that. Must have happened when one of them got back from the bathroom. Could even have been him.

“No, it’s alright. Really.”

“Yeah, but I got you really drunk, too. I showed up to your house, annihila-… ann-… a-… anni-”

“Annihilated?”

“Annihilated!” she cried victoriously. “Yes! Annihilated!”

“Annihilated what?”

“Um. Your booze? Yeah, I think I meant to say I annihilated your booze.”

“That was teamwork,” he laughed. “Now please, don’t worry. This was fun. I don’t mind. You could even…”

“What?”

Yes, what? He hadn’t authorized that invitation. Not consciously, at least. His drunken, tired brain was taking liberties, but now that he’d said it…

“I, uh. I have a spare room,” he said, feeling his mouth get drier by the second. “You’re welcome to use it. We’re both pretty pissed and perhaps you’re tired, so… I could walk you home if you want. Or call you a taxi. But if you want, you could stay.”

His heart was beating so fast he almost thought she could hear it from where she was sitting, but that was as ridiculous a thought as his offer to let her stay the night at his house. With him. _Him_ \- the school asshole, the cranky Scotsman, the monster middle school children were warned about by their older siblings.

“Are you serious? Cause I _am_ tired, but I kind of really don’t want to go home right now.”

What a coincidence. He _kind of really_ didn’t want her to leave. He nodded and tried not to look too eager.

“In that case, yeah! That’d be awesome,” she chirped. “Thanks.”

Hadn’t… actually expected her to say yes. Not really. Not at all, really, and now it was a reality. She wouldn’t leave tonight. Gold smiled and hoped it didn’t look nervous at all. He’d been veering between nervous and eager all night, hadn’t he? It was exhausting.

“You _are_ sure, aren’t you?” she asked him.

Oh, God, he’d been too quiet for too long. He nodded again, faster this time, told her, “Yes, yes. I-I just have to find a different comforter for the bed. It’s probably dusty. No-one’s been in there for a while.”

“That’s alright. I’ll do it. Do you have a linen closet somewhere?” she asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my guest.”

“Only because I barged in!”

He huffed. “If I didn’t want you in here, you wouldn’t be in here, remember?”

His drunken brain just kept on spitting out things he’d rather not have said and he was only noticing because of the strange smiles she gave him each time.

“Let’s just do it together, then.”

“Very well,” he sighed.

When he got up that time, he didn’t mask his pained groan. Too late to put on that act, now. Far too late. He was far too tired, and far too comfortable in her presence, despite the occasional sudden wave of complete and utter terror she sent over him with naught but a smirk or a tilt of her pretty head.

It felt strange to have her follow him up the stairs, because he’d daydreamed of this - except they weren’t holding hands like he imagined, and they weren’t heading to his room together. After a quick trip to the linen closet (she insisted on carrying everything and it looked ridiculous) he led her into the guest bedroom where she promptly tripped over the rug in the middle of the room and fell with a squeal and then a giggle. Gold nearly tripped over himself to go help her up, but it seemed she was alright; the comforter she’d insisted on carrying had broken her fall. Her laughter sounded muffled with her face pushed into the fabric like that, and it made him want to laugh, too.

“Ms French! What on earth are you doing?” he teased, standing over her with his hands on his hips.

“I’m facedown on your bedroom floor; I think it’s okay to start calling me Belle, now,” she laughed, rolling over on her back and making his heart swell with that smile of hers. God, she was a mess. Such a beautiful, adorable mess - hair in her pretty red face, her arms up over her head in defeat.

And then he noticed her yellow sweatshirt had ridden up just a little bit, and his brain chose that exact moment to finally translate her words from pretty mewls to actual meaning ( _facedown on his bedroom floor_ ) and he felt his face begin to heat up. Wasn’t the whisky or the wine, either. That mind of hers after a few drinks was dangerous. Best to ignore anything it made her say at this point.

She stretched her arms out and squeaked, “A little help?”

Apart from that.

He grabbed her hands and helped her up. Back on her feet, she wobbled for a bit but stabilized herself before the urge to grab her shoulders got too compelling. He gathered the comforter from the floor and threw it over the bed while she stood and pulled the hem of her sweatshirt back down to cover that sliver of skin he’d spied.

“Do you have an old t-shirt I could borrow?” she asked him, straightening the bottom half of the comforter while he took care to fluff the pillows.

“Sure. Of course. I’ll be right back.”

In his bedroom, he opened his closet and grabbed the first t-shirt he saw. White, recently washed with fabric softener, about a billion sizes too big for her, but then what did she expect? When he got back to the other room, she was still standing in the same spot, but he had caught her in the middle of a yawn. If she got any cuter he might be tempted to lock the door behind him and keep her there forever. A stupid, drunken thought, but wouldn’t it be lovely to be able to just see her whenever he wanted? Drop by with dinner, get drunk with her, let her list all of her exes and sum up all of their faults so that he could avoid making the same mistakes.

“I hope this is alright,” he said, as if somehow he could have fucked up a request that simple.

She took the shirt from him without breaking eye contact and said, “Perfect. Thanks,” because of course she didn’t need to check. A t-shirt’s a t-shirt.

“Do you need anything else?”

There was a beat of silence. She gave him a puzzled look.

“I mean, pajama bottoms?” he added quickly. “They’d be too big, but -”

“Oh! No, no, it’s…” She paused and held the shirt up in front of her with a little smile. “It’s a nightie, you see?”

“Oh. Oh, alright. Okay. I’ll just…”

He backed away. Fucking _backed away_ as if she were a wild animal and he’d accidentally sneaked up on her in the woods during a hike.

“Good night,” she said once he’d made it to the door without stumbling into anything or tripping over the rug in the middle of the room.

“Good night, Belle,” he croaked. He turned to, effectively, flee like a coward, but then she called out, “Hey!” and he stopped.

“Hm?”

When he turned around, she was closer than he’d left her. Must not have heard her come closer on her socks.

“You saved my evening again,” she said softly. “I think I’d like to save yours, next time. It’d be nice to do some of the saving for a change.”

He would have just spent another evening on his own, staring at the television screen or a book. In a way, she’d saved his evening from himself. He shrugged, smiled and told her, “You already save my seat.”

An exchange of nods, smiles and goodnights, and then he left her to settle down. In his own room, which shared a wall with hers, he chucked off his clothes and got into his pajamas as quickly as he could, because it was chilly up here. And he might have been sleepy down there in his living room, where the temperature was conductive to century-long naps, but he never had the heating on in his bedroom, and he was alert, now. Awake.

And he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

She was here, in his house, warm and soft in one of his beds, under a comforter he’d slept under himself at some point. In his t-shirt. His t-shirt on her bare skin. Her jeans were on his bedroom floor. Not this bedroom, but another one that was technically also his, so her jeans were on his bedroom floor. Unless she’d put them on the dresser or on a chair, of course, but they were both pretty pissed and he hadn’t folded his clothes either, so her jeans were probably on his bedroom floor, and he had no idea why those words got stuck in his head and repeated themselves so often. It was just a heap of fabric

But it would still be warm.

“Oh, fuck’s sake,” he hissed at himself as he turned to bury his face in his pillow. He was embarrassing himself. The buzz was wearing off, and if he started to think about all of the things he’d told her and all of the times he’d looked at her for too long - and not to mention the times he’d let his smile betray his truth tonight, he might as well get dressed and go back downstairs to do something productive. He’d never get any sleep that way.

So he clenched his eyes shut and tried to think of work - of dates and numbers and the field trip budget. It worked, thankfully, but then just as he was falling asleep, he heard a cough. Her cough. A soft sound, muffled by these walls, and he had to calm his overexcited brain down all over again. Jeans on his bedroom floor. His t-shirt. All of it came back again.

Dates. Numbers. Dollars. He converted it to pounds. He converted those pounds to euros. He tossed, he turned, he waited, and apparently he slept, because the next time he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see that it was light out.

He’d woken because he heard a door creak open and shut again. In his sleepy daze, in the pale morning light, it took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t dreaming that; there was actually someone in the house with him. He heard her walk past his door, down the creaky stairs, then he lost track of her footsteps for a moment, but finally he heard the front door open and close. She was gone.

He closed his eyes and slept on for another hour or so, hoping his head would be throbbing a little less when he woke up. On his way to the bathroom, not quite knowing why, he stopped by his guest bedroom and saw that she’d made the bed neatly before she left. How considerate.

On his coffee table, he found not only his almost empty bottle of whisky, but a piece of paper torn from the notepad he kept on the little table by the landline.

On it, she’d drawn a little sheep. Slightly misshapen and interestingly proportioned. A cloud with four stubby legs and a head with floppy ears, essentially, and underneath it a message that read:

_Gold,_  
_Thank you for the expensive booze hangover._  
_Took your t-shirt home with me to wash._  
_Will get it back to you ASAP._  
_x_  
_Belle_

Would you look at that. Another bookmark.

…

“Dad!”  
“Hey! Is this a good time?”  
“Yeah! You know I don’t work on Sundays. What’s up?”  
“Nothing. Nothing, I just wanted to check in. It’s been a while. How are you?”  
“I’m good. I’m always good.”  
“Yeah. You are. You don’t give me much to worry about. Tell me about your Saturday.”  
“Watched the game. Ate too much. How was yours?”

There was his chance, wasn’t it? He could tell him now. Wasn’t that why he’d called him? Well, no, he’d called him because he missed him. He always missed him, but it had been so long since they’d spoken on the phone, and… God, no, he really wanted to tell him what he’d gotten himself into, bloody idiot he was.

“I… I had a friend over.”

Silence on the other end. Gold rubbed his tired old face with his hand and stared out of his kitchen window. That bluejay was back. Or, well, another bluejay entirely. That was more likely.

“Are you kidding me?”

Ah, finally. Gold snorted. “Thanks for that, son.”  
“No, not like that. I’m not being a smartass. You have more friends than you like to admit, dad. I just can’t remember you inviting any of them over.”  
“I didn’t invite her,” he hurried. “She just showed up.”  
“She?”  
“Not like that.”

Exactly like that. _Exactly_ like that. For him, at least. Not for her.

He laughed. “Yeah, I’ll be the judge of that. Tell me about her.”

Gold smiled at his own reflection in the window. A quick sip of his coffee and he was ready to tell him. More or less. A bit. He was ready to drop hints, was what it was. Yes. Neal would take it from there.

“New English teacher. She’s Australian.”  
“And?”  
“What do you mean, and?”  
“You barely ever mention anyone to me unless they piss you off. I’m just saying. You either hate her or you like her, and since you let her in the house, I’m pretty sure which it is. Tell me more.”

He laughed, shook his head, took another quick sip of coffee.

“Her name is Belle.”  
“Alright. Good name. You like B names. What’s she like?”  
“She… She’s just…”

Hm. Difficult to describe, apparently. Beautiful, obviously, but…

“Her nickname at school is Disney Princess.”  
“So… Is she constantly singing? Does she live in a tower and let her hair - Oh! Belle! She a bookworm?”  
“No,” he laughed. “Well, no, yes. She is. But they nicknamed her that because she’s very sweet and patient with her students. She’s just nice. A nice person.”  
“That does sound very Disney.”  
“There’s more to her. Not a dark side, but… nothing Disney, either. She’s fun. She laughs a lot. She stands up for herself.”

Except when being cornered in a supermarket, but still.

“What else?”  
“She’s fucking gorgeous, son. I’m not gonna lie.”  
“You like her!” he cried with a victorious cackle. “Okay, so ask her out.”  
“No, no. Out of the question. We’re just friends. She said so herself.”  
“Did she say you were _just_ friends? Or did she say you were friends?”  
“The _just_ was implied.”  
“By you. Which makes it invalid. Now, tell me why she showed up at the house last night.”  
“She needed to vent about work.”  
“Did she leave right after?”  
“We had a few drinks.”  
“A _few_ drinks, huh? And then?”  
“Nothing! We talked!”  
“And nothing happened?”

The bluejay flew away and Gold was left with nothing but his own reflection to stare at.

“Nothing happened. I let her stay in the guest bedroom. We were both pissed, son, I really couldn’t kick her out.”  
“She stayed over?”  
“Yeah, but -”  
“Did she ask to?”  
“I told her I could call her a taxi, walk her home, or she could stay.”  
“So she actually chose to stay?”  
“Do you think I’d lock her in the basement?”  
“Just saying. She wanted to stay.”  
“We were pissed. She was tired.”  
“Mhm. What did you two talk about all night?”

_Thinking no worse of the cow when she gives you the milk for free._

“Lots of things.”  
“Like what?”  
“She asked about my ankle, so we talked about that for a bit.”  
“Now I know for sure you like her,” he teased. “You never tell anyone the sheep story. What else did you talk about?”  
“Just… I don’t know. We talked about why we were single, but -”

His laughter was loud and deep and seemingly endless. Gold loved hearing it, even if it was at his expense.

“Oh, dad. That’s a classic. Who brought it up?”  
“She did.”  
“Oh my God. Dad. _Dad_. Be honest. Does she flirt with you?”

Would joking about being facedown on his bedroom floor count?

“No! No, no, I don’t think so. No.”  
“That’s a couple of no’s too many. Try again.”

There had been some strange moments, hadn’t there? He’d chalked them all up to something else. Alcohol, tiredness, boredom, playfulness. What if…

… No.

“If she _has_ flirted, it’s not because she’s interested,” he decided with a firm nod.  
“She flirts with you because she’s not interested? Are you hearing yourself talk right now?”  
“She’s Australian. They do that.”  
“Do they? Does she do that with anyone else?”  
“How am I supposed to know? I don’t follow her around all day.”  
“Maybe she’s just flirting, dad.”  
“But if she’s flirting, it’s because she knows I’d never make a move. It’s safe. It’s like a word game. She’s an English teacher. They like word games. They’re chatty. And, you know, Australian. You know what they’re like.”  
“No, but I know what _you’re_ like. Fucking hell…”

Had he angered him? Gold stayed silent, didn’t even touch his coffee, hoped Neal would speak again soon.

“What kinda convoluted - … God, you always twist everything good in your life into something that reflects badly on you for no good reason. For the love of God, would you please, _please_ consider the possibility that maybe this Belle likes you?”

But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t possibly let himself consider that. What if he was wrong? What if Neal was wrong? And what if _she_ was wrong? What if she’d seen something in him that wasn’t there?

“But she could have anyone she wants. She’s gorgeous, son. She’s got these eyes that… And she’s twenty years younger than me, at least, and - ”  
“Oh, man,” he groaned. “Look, dad. Please don’t make me say this ever again, but you have a certain… appeal. Okay? I know you used to know that.”  
“Son - ”  
“Don’t argue. I’m not gonna argue with you over that. No matter what her motivation, she’s given you reason to think that she’s tried to flirt. Yeah?”  
“It doesn’t matter if -”  
“That was a yes or no question.”

The clock above the door to the garden ticked the seconds away. His coffee was getting cold. The bluejay was back - for a few seconds, and then it flew off and left him on his own again.

“Yes.”  
“She’s been flirting, then.”

She’d been… No. Yes, but no.

“I could be reading too much into things.”  
“No. It’s the exact opposite of that. You don’t want to believe she’s flirting with you because you don’t want to believe anyone would want to.”  
“That’s ridiculous. Why would I not want to believe that?”  
“Really, dad?”  
“I don’t know what you mean.”

Neal sighed, but it sounded distant and muffled. He was probably holding the phone at arm’s length, and suddenly Gold felt guilty. He’d called up his son on his day off and forced him into talking some sense into him, as if he was the parent, and not the child. Neal was frustrated. _He_ was frustrating. He knew that. That’s why Neal had bolted right after graduating in the first place, and here he was calling him up to carry on being frustrating.

“All my life, you kept people away from us because you were scared I’d end up getting hurt. It took me years to realize you weren’t just protecting me; you were scared to get hurt again. And I was your excuse to stop trying.”  
“How was that an excuse when it’s a legitimate concern? I couldn’t let just anyone into our lives, son. You know that.”  
“It may have been a legitimate concern, but it was damn convenient, wasn’t it? I felt guilty, you know. Cause I knew you were pushing good people away for my sake.”

Gold swallowed down his excuses. He nodded, even though he knew Neal couldn’t see. They’d had this conversation. Many times over. Not like this, exactly, but the general sentiment was the same. He let hurt and fear guide him all of this time. Honestly, Gold thought he’d gotten better, but apparently not. Apparently not very much at all.

“I can’t help you get over that. That’s your job, and your Disney Princess can help, maybe. But I can tell you I won’t be your excuse anymore. I’m grown now. You did a good job.”  
“I didn’t…”  
“Yes, you did. It didn’t go smoothly all of the time, but what the hell does in this world? You sacrificed a lot of things for me, dad, and don’t think I don’t know that. I’m alright now, aren’t I?”

He had wanted to be home when his boy was. Take him to school, drive him back. Cook him his dinner, help with his homework. The job was perfect for that. He never stayed late back then, and he turned down promotions and better job offers, cancelled his plans to finish his PhD. None of it felt like a sacrifice. It meant more time with his son.

“I didn’t sacrifice anything for you. I didn’t need anything or anyone but you.”  
“It’s not about needing anything. It’s about finding something good and letting yourself have it. How is it you raised me to know that and I’m sitting here trying to convince you?”  
“Maybe you’re wiser than I am, son,” he muttered, catching his own wry smile in the mirror.  
“Well, whatever. I’m a grown-ass man, dad. The whole _‘Sorry, dearie. I cannae have dinner with you or the wee’un will lose another mother figure if it all goes tits up,’_ schtick doesn’t fly anymore.”

Gold laughed. Couldn’t help it. The only time he ever caught a hint of the accent Neal used to have when he was little was when he cursed under his breath, but his impression of him was still more or less spot on. Bit over the top. But good. That was comforting, somehow. Still a bit of him left in there.

“Just have an open mind, okay? I’m not saying you should lose the angry solitary Scotsman act altogether. You can still alienate everyone else for all I care. I’m not even saying you should ask her out right away. I’m just asking you to really listen to what she’s saying. Think it over and do that thing you taught me. The thing about the fewest assumptions.”

“Ockam’s razor,” Gold sighed.

“Yeah. That. Does she consistently show an interest in you in a way that she doesn’t seem to do with anyone else because she wants to be platonic friends and somehow knows you wouldn’t have the balls to make a move no matter how flirty she gets, or is she just - heaven forbid - flirting because she’s interested in you romantically?”

Well, when Neal put it like that… It did make him sound a bit of a lunatic conspiracy theorist, didn’t it? But even as his son was prying his hands loose from the edge of the pool finger by finger, assuring him he wouldn’t drown and that he wasn’t even in the bloody deep end, Gold couldn’t stop picturing the water filling his lungs and dragging him down into the depths if he even for a single moment considered that perhaps, _perhaps_ -

“I don’t want to ruin what we have.”  
“Yeah, alright, I get that. But I’m not telling you to lunge. I’m telling you to stop assuming she couldn’t possibly be interested. That’s all.”

He sighed.

“Please?”  
“I’ll try.”  
“Good. Now - Wait, hold on, dad. What’s that, honey?”

He heard a woman’s voice sounding muffled from a distance.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there, babe. I’m just finishing up here. Could you get me some bleach so I can wash out my mouth when I’m done with this conversation? I’m helping my dad get laid and bleach is cheaper than therapy.”

Gold snorted, cringed, shook his head while his son’s girlfriend laughed in the distance.

“Son,” he laughed, “hold on.”  
“Yeah, I’m still here.”  
“Thank you.”  
“Thank me by not being such an asshole to yourself.”

Sweet Neal, his boy. He was his best friend, and Gold wasn’t his, and that was fine. That was perfect, even. He was doing fine over there in that city that had swallowed him whole, with his friends and his job and his girlfriend who had probably tossed him a bottle of bleach after he hung up to keep the joke going. His son didn’t need him like he used to, and that was exactly the way it should be. He had a life, now.

They said their goodbyes, promised to call sooner next time (as they always did) and now Gold was left alone with his hungover reflection in the kitchen window. All alone in his big empty house with his big mug of cold coffee, staring at a comically bad drawing of a sheep, because he couldn’t stop thinking about kissing the woman who had drawn it.

He would start with listening to her words, now. He’d told his boy that he would. Really listen. Wouldn’t let them bounce off his shield and fall hollow to the floor anymore.

And then maybe, if she offered again, he’d accept an apple.


	5. Chivalry, Piracy, Sorcery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Banter, mostly. Pirates, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A (relatively) smaller chapter, but the next one won't take as long, because it's very nearly done. I needed to split this chapter up. :)
> 
> [Foxmurphy](http://foxmurphy.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr is a helpful pirate historian. Seriously. Actual pirate historian. Spread the word. (Thank you. :D)

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. I’m so sorry.”

Belle hadn’t stepped on his foot. She hadn’t spilled scalding hot tea all over him. She hadn’t dropped his favorite mug to the floor. No, she’d accidentally put an extra sugar in each mug, and yet this was her fourth apology. Sitting opposite him today and not next to him for reasons unclear, she stirred a whirlpool into her tea and looked utterly despondent.

“It’s fine, really. I don’t mind.”

“But you take two, like me.”

Well, actually, he usually took one. At least, he used to. The very first time Belle offered to make tea, she’d mentioned she took two sugars and asked him how many he liked, and to this day he still wasn’t sure why, but he’d answered with a terse, “Same,” and from that day on, his daily sugar intake had practically doubled. Even when he was on tea duty, he took two now, just in case she was watching and noticed. He’d tried going back to one, but he missed the sweetness. It was ridiculous, but that was how it was, now.

“It’s sugar, not arsenic. It won’t kill me,” he tried to assure her.

She shook her head and kept stirring, even though the sugar must have been long dissolved by now. “I could have swapped and given you mine if I hadn’t messed that one up too,” she said, and Gold began to wonder if she’d heard him at all.

“Ms French…”

If this was about the tea, he’d go out, buy a hat and eat it. Her little spoon did its very best to make as much noise as it could, clattering around the rim of her mug until something in his chest pulsed along with every sharp clang of metal hitting ceramic and it was too much for him to take anymore.

“Belle.”

She ceased her furious stirring the moment he spoke her name and looked up. No creases in her brow, her lips no longer a thin line. It was as if he’d accidentally stumbled upon a magic word. Good.

Now, to stumble upon a few more and stop this silliness before he started feeling guilty for not taking three sugars in the first place. “I was happy to see you Saturday,” he said.

There was a moment of tense silence while she scanned his face for his sincerity. Then, pleased with what she found there, her shoulders fell, she sighed and smiled, and ah - there was his favorite disaster again, all ready to carry on terrorizing him. In a way, it was a relief. In all other ways, he knew he’d just kicked this dragon slayer’s sword right back at her and told her to carry on hacking at his scaly armor.

“Did you find my note?” she asked him with a cheeky grin, sounding a little bit like a proud child hinting that she’d quite like her drawing to be pinned to the refrigerator. She might as well have handed him a magnet.

“I did indeed,” he replied with a serious nod. “You’re quite the artist. I especially liked the look of complete despair in its beady eyes.”

“What do you mean, _despair_?” she gasped. “I gave it a little smile!”

“It looked wistful.”

“Shut up!” she laughed.

The skin around her eyes crinkled and her cheeks got even rounder somehow, and all he wanted to do was sit there and make her laugh some more. “Yes. A wistful sheep,” he decided with a nod.

She tried to pout, now, but it wasn’t really working. “I tried my best!”

“Oh, that is truly sad.” He hid his smirking lips behind his mug. It was addictive, teasing her like that and making her giggle. Why hadn’t he tried it before? All that time he spent cowering in her gaze, he could have spent like this instead. Timing. That was what it was. If she struck first, he fell to his knees. If he struck first, there was still a chance for a fair game.

That was, if she didn’t interrupt their play fight with a dose of sincerity seemingly out of nowhere and disarmed him again as she did now, with a concerned look on her face, asking him, “I didn’t wake you when I left, did I?”

“You didn’t,” he lied.

“Oh, okay,” she sighed. “Good. I don’t know if it was rude to leave like that, but I didn’t want to inconvenience you any more than I already had.”

“It wasn’t rude. You wouldn’t have inconvenienced me, but it wasn’t rude.”

“No?”

He shrugged, smiled, looked down into his tea, muttered something silly and borderline rude (“It’s not as if you take up an awful lot of space.”) and felt his fingers twitch and grasp his mug tighter at the sound of her smile in her voice when she told him, “Wish I’d stayed, now.”

God. She made him feel so impossibly warm inside. How lovely it would be to have the same effect on her. How sweet it would be not to have to look away from her quite so often, as if looking at her was like staring directly at the sun.

“Oh!” she cried, smacking her hand to her forehead.

“What is it?”

“I forgot to bring your t-shirt with me!”

Oh, yes. Well. Good.

Why did the thought of her in his t-shirt make him smile so much? Juvenile was what it was. All too evocative of the cliché of the high school quarterback draping his letter jacket over his blushing cheerleader girlfriend’s shoulders, except this was infinitely more pathetic than that on several levels, the most significant of which the fact that one party in this exchange hadn’t assigned any meaning to the stupid piece of fabric at all, so there wasn’t really an exchange to speak of, was there? Just his t-shirt in her dirty laundry.

“That’s alright,” he said. “No rush.”

“Are you sure? Cause I could go and get it during lunch, if you want.”

It would be strange to tell her to keep it, so Gold shrugged and told her, “Don’t be silly. Got plenty of other t-shirts just like it,” knowing that that was the closest he could ever get to telling her to keep it without having to change his name and flee the country with a suitcase full of shame.

She nodded and started taking careful slurping sips of tea, now. It reminded him to drink his own - sickly sweet but sort of satisfying in a sense.

“Thanks again,” she sighed. “I really needed that talk.”

With his mouth full of tea, he could only nod for the moment. He swallowed, shrugged, put the mug down and told her, “My offer still stands. If you need me to talk to these people, I will.” He wasn’t sure what that would entail, exactly, but he’d know what to say once he saw their faces. The faces of the irredeemable morons who had made Belle French feel inadequate. Who had made her walk through rain to end up shivering on his doorstep.

“I know. Thank you, but I can handle it.”

“But if they hold you up after school again, please, at least let me -”

“Let you jump on your white horse and gallop to my rescue?” she cut in with more than just a hint of a teasing tone to her voice.

Gold stared, blinked, scrambled for words as they ran and hid from her insistent grin. “Pony, I think,” he managed dryly.

Belle huffed, narrowed her eyes but smiled at him all the same. “Alright, Galahad!”

“ _Galahad?_ ” That virginal snore? That insufferable goody-goody mouse of a knight? Sure, he got the job done eventually, but did he really have to be such a fucking sanctimonious bore about it? “I think not!” Gold scoffed.

“I don’t know. Sometimes you sure act like a Galahad. Did you think you were more of a Lancelot, then?”

“Lancelot’s a better fit than Galahad, but I wouldn’t go off and have an affair with Higgins’ wife, either, if that’s what you mean,” he muttered. “Though she is a lovely lady.”

“Gold!” Belle whispered, her eyes wide and fixed to a point somewhere behind him. Right up over his head. At about - oh, let’s say… Higgins-level. Excellent timing.

“What’s that about my wife, Gold?” sang the King Arthur of their shoddily constructed analogy from somewhere behind him. Belle gasped and covered her eyes with her free hand. Gold smirked. How cute.

“Just that I wouldn’t have an affair with her, Margaret,” he said, twisting around in his chair to flash her a smile as she went about whatever business she had in the kitchen area.

“How _dare_ you just dismiss the idea like that! My wife’s a lovely lady!”

Belle managed to stifle her laughter at the expense of her tea dribbling out of her mouth and back into her mug. Gold didn’t even bother holding back his laughter at that particular display of elegance. Her face was red and she was wiping tea off her chin and sucking her fingers clean, and it was _clearly_ time to look away, now, so he twisted around again to explain, “Ms French here was merely trying and failing to liken me to a knight of the Round Table. She’d moved on to Lancelot just before you came in.”

“Aha. I see. Hence the casual discussion of adultery in the workplace,” said Higgins, opening and closing cabinets until she found what she was looking for - a tea towel which she slung over her shoulder.

“Precisely.”

“Typical. Leave an anglicist and a historian alone in a room together long enough and the conversation invariably turns to Arthurian legend. I call it Higgins’ Law.”

“Say, refresh my memory. What do you call the law that compels a mathematician to come up with a useless new law whenever they walk in on a conversation?”

“Yes, yes, alright,” she laughed. “I’m leaving before I get sucked into your pseudo-historical banter. Carry on.”

Belle, with her little lip biting smile, nodded goodbye as Higgins marched out of the room and left them on their own again. In silence - until they heard the sound of Higgins’ office door clicking shut down the hall.

“I didn’t know you two were so friendly,” said Belle, grinning. “I half-expected a bloodbath.”

“We’re alright,” he replied with a little shrug.

Sitting there, smiling into his tea, Gold decided that this might very well have been his favorite hour of the week. An hour of her company. Sometimes they were very quiet and just sat and read or graded. Sometimes the back and forth was fluent and natural, and they ended up having to gulp down their cold tea in a rush because they were five minutes late to their respective classes already. Both were nice, really, but today was turning out to be anything but quiet.

“Is it that you just don’t like knights in general?”

Right back where they left off, as if they hadn’t been interrupted at all. That was really nice, actually. It was comfortable. Not dull, not predictable, sometimes even terrifying when it seemed for a fraction of a second that she’d sniffed him out, but still there was a certain ease to it all, generally speaking.

“Stories about chivalry and virtue never captured my imagination.”

“But you have to read between the lines with Arthurian literature. It’s about struggling with those things.”

“Which still makes them the subject, really.”

She bit her lip and turned her eyes to the ceiling in thought. After mulling over his words for a few seconds (giving him time to spot a little drop of tea still clinging to her thumb) she shrugged and told him, “Fair enough. But even as a little kid? When it was just about fighting dragons and saving princesses?”

“Just wasn’t interested,” he shrugged.

“More of a pirate sort of guy, then?”

He shook his head and sipped his tea, raising an eyebrow when that didn’t seem to have answered her question. “I don’t like pirates either,” he clarified.

“What?” she cried, that accent and her indignation working in unison to make her lips round even more than usual. “Why not? What don’t you like about pirates?”

“The low hygiene standards. The chaos. The smugness. The boats.”

“ _Ships!_ And what do you mean, chaos? They totally had codes.”

“Codes to facilitate anarchic behavior.”

“I can understand being bored by knights, but pirates? Really? Didn’t you ever play pirates when you were little?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Did you really not even for a week or so wish you could be a pirate?”

“Did you?”

“Yeah! What’s not to love about pirates? Great big ships, tropical islands, adventures and treasure!”

Gold took an extra long sip for dramatic effect, licked his lips, shrugged and replied, “Scurvy, malaria, misadventures and stolen property.”

She made a breathy sound of dismay and looked away from him and his smug smirk demonstratively. She had her hair up today, and he didn’t know where to look; the interesting shape her profile cut against the cheap wood paneling on the wall, the lines of her neck muscles pulled taut with her head turned to her right like that, or her playful pout slowly, absently turning into a smile as she seemed to sink deeper into her thoughts.

He wanted to know what was making her smile like that. Was she counting coin far away on a creaky ship with billowing black sails as gulls screamed overhead?

“What do you like so much about them?” he tried.

She turned her dreamy smile to him. “Well, the clothes were pretty awesome, for one.”

“I’ll concede that point. Dashing outfits.”

“Right? But seriously?” She sighed and looked down into her tea. “Well, adventure. Camaraderie, most of all. I was a bit of a lonely child. I liked the idea of being alone, but together, if that makes sense.”

“It does,” said Gold softly.

“One of my earliest memories is of this big wooden pirate ship jungle gym. I remember playing on that thing for what felt like hours. There weren’t many kids my age in my neighborhood and there was never anyone to play with.”

Belle looked up at him, and Gold thought she must have mistaken his unguarded look of adoration for pity, because she replaced her dreamy look with a bright grin and told him, “So I got to be the captain every single time.”

She had given him little bits of her past. Charming little scenes for him to picture and keep safe. And he wasn’t sure whether that tightness in his chest was a spontaneous desire to give her part of himself, or an urge to try and keep a sort of abstract balance between them, but perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps it could be both.

“When I was little, I…”

Gold discovered then that sharing was more difficult than Belle had made it look, but her smile and her encouraging nod pulled him over the line and lured the words out anyway.

“I liked to pretend I was a sorcerer,” he confessed.

“Merlin!” she cried, perking up in her chair and scooting to the edge of it in her excitement. “You don’t want to be a knight because you think you’re Merlin!”

Gold laughed. She was stuck on the Arthurian stuff like a Rottweiler on a mailman’s trouser leg. “Not particularly. Sorcerers are just infinitely more powerful. Makes sense to want to be a sorcerer.”

“But knights and pirates can sword fight!”

“There’s no reason a sorcerer couldn’t sword fight if he wanted to,” he huffed, jerking his head back in feigned insult.

“A pretend sorcerer would have been great to have on board of my pretend ship when I was playing pretend pirates,” she mused, wriggling herself back into a comfortable position on her chair. “You could have calmed the seas, conjured up tidal waves and giant sea creatures to crush other ships. Conjured up dinner, too! No more hard tack!”

“I’d get seasick.”

“Oh, you’d be fine,” she sang, dismissing his protests with a wave of her hand. “Put you up in the crow’s nest. I’d have you -”

“Fireball down an albatross for dinner and doom us all?”

“Hey!” she cried, reaching over to slap him on the knee with the force of that of a lazy kitten. “Leave the literature references to me, thank you very much!”

“Couldn’t risk you just letting that one hang there, could I?”

“I would have gotten to it eventually!” she pouted.

“Sure.”

…

“What are you reading?” she asked him the next morning, putting their mugs down on the coffee table for the tea to cool. She settled into her regular seat right next to his and without waiting for an answer, reached over and hooked a dainty finger under the cover (scraping softly against his knee for a moment) to pull the book up from his lap so she could lean forward and read the title on the cover.

“Oh. Um.”

What was he making these dumb sounds for? Surely, he’d expected this. Well, he should have, really. At the very least, he shouldn’t have been surprised.

“ _Under the Black Flag?_ ”

“Yes.”

“You’re reading about pirates!” she remarked cheerfully, letting the book flop back down onto his lap. There was a little hint of victory in her voice and the effect was amplified by her pleased grin.

“I… Yes. I dropped by the book store yesterday after work and saw this. It looked good, and I remembered that conversation we had, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

“I thought you didn’t like pirates,” she teased.

“Yes, well, your enthusiasm was infectious,” he mumbled. “Which isn’t to say I like pirates, now. I’m just… learning more about them.”

“Can I see?”

Belle was already holding out her hands to have a look. How could he say no to that? He closed the book and handed it over for her to inspect.

“Do you like it?” she asked, eyes scanning the blurb on the back, then turning to the introduction to have a quick look at that.

“Haven’t gotten that far. I do now know the difference between a corsair and a buccaneer, though, so it’s been informative at least.”

“Can I borrow it when you’re done?”

“Of course.” Ah, fuck. Now he was going to have to read faster.

“Brilliant. Thanks. This does look good.”

He watched her thumb through the book for a little while until suddenly she stopped somewhere near the beginning and raised her eyebrows in surprise. Or amusement. He couldn’t quite tell.

“Oh. It’s…”

Gold frowned and leaned over to see what it was she’d discovered. And his heart stopped - or, you know, felt like it had - because sitting there in between two pages, doing a perfectly adequate job as a bookmark, was something he should have left at home.

“It’s my number,” Belle said, casting a quick glance from the bit of paper between her fingers to his vaguely guilty looking face. “I remember this.”

Idiot. He was such an idiot. Bringing this book (proof of the fact that he didn’t immediately stop thinking of her once she was out of sight) to school was one thing, but leaving that piece of paper in there instead of quickly tearing a corner from a newspaper page and using that for a bookmark instead? That was unforgivably stupid. Or self-sabotaging. He wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe he was slowly losing his mind. Maybe some part of him wanted it all to crash down so she could reject him and get it over with.

Or maybe not reject him. Maybe…

“I-I needed a bookmark,” he explained. “First thing I found when I looked for one.”

_Please stop smiling at me._

“Mm.”

She had given him that piece of paper with her number on it before he gave her that woven silk bookmark. She knew that as well as him. That excuse might have worked with the wistful sheep, but…

“You know, if I didn’t distinctly remember adding my number to your contacts myself that night, I might have thought you’d lost it,” said Belle softly, closing the book and handing it back to him. “I thought maybe you forgot you had it at all.”

What was that supposed to mean? Did he want to know? Those two questions like giant neon signs flashing in his mind meant that he was staring at her now, blinking stupidly, waiting for a hint or perhaps a slideshow presentation on the meaning of - and above all the _reason_ for that statement.

Why would she think he had lost her number? She’d given it to him twice, so losing it would have been quite the feat of incompetence. Did she think him that careless? And how could he have forgotten? She’d made too much of a thing of it for that; nearly shoving that bit of paper in his face, asking for his phone, sidling up to him to add a contact picture until they were almost thigh to thigh, and…

And then she didn’t move back to her own seat.

And they talked and laughed all night.

And then he walked her home and she kissed him on the cheek. Twice.

Twice.

She…

“Gold? Everything okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I was just -”

The shrill scream of the bell saved him from having to heap another little lie on the huge pile of inconsequential fibs he’d been hoarding since he and Belle had started having actual conversations. One of the more unusual items a dragon might hoard.

She put her hand on his wrist, a simple, light touch that pinned him down as surely as if she’d parked her car there.

“Talk to you later, maybe?” she asked, smiling.

“Yeah.”

“Alright.”

…

Sometimes, when his pupils were reading quietly, Gold let himself imagine. The catalyst might be anything - a robin landing on the windowsill, grabbing his attention and flying off with it, for instance. The sound of a chair scraping against the floor of the classroom above would do it. A plane flying overhead, too. Anything, really, could set it off in the silence and calm.

Recently, he had started picturing himself simply standing up and walking out of the room. No-one would even look up. And he would walk, without his limp, to the classroom down the hall. Her door would be wide open to let the spring breeze pass through the open window. It would toy with his hair and blow the chalk dust from his tired old eyes. He would simply stand there and watch her for a moment, and once she noticed him she would smile and somehow know to follow when he turned and headed towards the exit. Slowly, to let her catch up. And when she did, she would bump her fingers, her knuckles against his gently. Not a request. More of a reminder. He would take her hand in his and they would simply walk out into the late morning sun.

And that was it, really. That was all he allowed himself. He just pictured himself walking out with her. Simply that. When the daydream was over and the doors fell shut behind them as they walked some place to be alone together, he would just start all over again. Standing up. Finding her. Smiling back. Taking her hand. Walking out.

In his mind, he was almost at her door again, but a rapping on _his_ doorframe tore him back to his body, in this room, where the only thing touching his fingers was chalk dust, and the windows were closed. He blinked a few times as if to bat the remnants of his silly daydream out of his eyes, then looked up.

She’d followed him out of his head and there she was.

“Ms French.”

And her smile, too.

“Hey! Sorry to bother you. Do you have a spare green pen I could borrow? I’d go to the supply room, but I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“Oh. Sure, sure,” he croaked, his throat inexplicably dry. He opened the top drawer of his desk and rifled through its extremely useless contents (rubber bands, pens, stamps, toothpicks, three colorful bouncy balls confiscated some time in the early nineties, paperclips, loose staples, etc.) until he found the green pen he never used.

“Found it.” He was going to stand up and bring it over to her, but she’d rushed to his desk with a grateful smile before he could even push his chair back.

“Ah, you’re a legend,” she sang, plucking the pen from his outstretched hand. “Thanks. I’ll get it back to you as soon as I’m done.”

When she left the room, that part of his consciousness that always wanted to be with her dumbly followed her to the door, which was why Gold sat there and stared for a moment, until he became aware of a pair of eyes on him. Eyes that should have been reading. He turned to see one little meerkat perked up unlike the others still bent over their textbooks.

Daniels.

He glared at him, but the boy didn’t even flinch - just stared right back at him for a few seconds, then smiled like the Cheshire bloody Cat himself. “Do you like her, sir?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Princess, sir.”

Fuck. _Fuck_. Should have told the little fucker to shut up and finish his reading. He’d walked right into that one.

“I don’t know who you’re referring to. Read on,” he growled.

Others were looking up, now, giving each other strange, nervous looks.

“I was referring to Ms French, sir. Do you like her?”

Gold swallowed, squared his shoulders, clenched his jaw, made his voice as cold as he possibly could and said, “She’s an excellent teacher. A valued member of the team.”

“But do you like her?”

“Be quiet. Carry on reading.”

“But sir, do you - ”

“Well I don’t _hate_ her, Daniels,” he barked, “now be quiet!”

Ah, finally. Silence.

The boy was staring fixedly at him with his eyes wide open, and it was actually starting to get a little bit disconcerting. What was the matter with him? This was hardly the first time he’d raised his voice. Before he could snarl at him to get his nose back in the damn textbook, however, Daniels finally looked away. Towards the door. Where Gold now heard a polite little cough.

“Done. With the pen. Thanks.”

She walked in smiling but looking just the slightest bit confused, too, and when he took his pen back from her, he nearly dropped it. Fumbled, caught it just in time, grasped it as if were precious and fragile and hoped she hadn’t noticed. Noticed anything at all.

“Anytime,” he said with a little nod.

She turned and left the room.

Daniels. Fucking Daniels. Gold dropped the pen back into his mess of a desk drawer and slammed it shut. _Again_ the boy’s sharp little eyes were on him. Staring at him. Peering at him. Slowly beginning to smirk and making him want to bark the smugness right off his face.

Narrowing his eyes, still clenching his jaw, Gold muttered, “Finish reading the text before I come up with an excuse for the three weeks of detention dangling above your head right now.”

“Sorry, sir,” he mumbled, making himself smaller in his seat.

“Like the sword of…?”

Nothing.

Then a brave, small voice in the back going, “Damascus?”

“Damocles,” he sighed. “It’s Damocles. You knew that. You all knew that.”

Close enough, though, Gold decided as he let himself slump in his chair in defeat. Usually, they weren’t this disappointing in the afternoon, after they’d had their lunch and had a chance to shout and dick around at will. Perhaps another teacher had just assigned them a ton of homework. Perhaps they’d all stayed up late watching something godawful on TV. Maybe the kids who knew the answer but didn’t feel like speaking up would have lifted their sleepy heads from their desks and helped him out if they’d just gone to bed on time.

They weren’t idiots. But he was.

Because now he was sitting there, chewing his lip, worrying. A grown man, worrying himself sick over Schrödinger’s faux pas. Gold had no idea what was going through Belle’s mind now. No idea what it was she’d heard. She’d heard _something_ , clearly, but did she know it was about her? Would it be a bad thing if she knew it was? It was almost enough to make him feel nauseous; a vague ghost of a feeling that stayed with him for the rest of the day until halfway through the latest depressing stack of plagiarism presented as history papers and much later than usual, Belle showed up in his doorway for the third time that day and with her bright, carefree smile blew away that dark cloud of worry in the blink of an eye.

“Hey!”

It was a relief to see her and hear the usual cheer in her voice, but why was she still here? Worry flooded his system again, but for a different reason. A different dark cloud.

“Did Gerald’s parents show up again?” he asked, just about ready to jump up and go and have a word. “Are they still here?”

“No, no. Haven’t seen them since. I just stayed late to do a little grading. I figured I’d give it a try, since it’s working so well for you.”

It was only when he felt his shoulders slump in response to that that Gold realized he had tensed up. “Oh, I see,” he sighed, relieved. Perhaps his little talk with Margaret had helped sort things out. Perhaps she had made them back off.

“Anyway, I’m done now. I know you usually stay later than this, but I wanted to check, just in case. I could walk you to your car.”

Oh.

“Just finished here, actually.”

Another lie. He had another stack of these just waiting and begging to be decorated with red ink. But Gold didn’t care.

Because as they walked slowly down the hall in its sunset darkness, closer together than need be now that the place was deserted and there was no-one to bump into, he felt completely content in the simplicity of the moment. Just them, walking slow, stretching time. And in the silence in between their footsteps, he remembered his boy asking him to listen, really listen to the words she said, but there were no words, now, and somehow that meant _more_. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this little walk to the parking lot was important to the both of them. Why else would they be walking so slow? Why else would he catch her smiling like that from the corner of his eye?

And it was terrifying. To think that perhaps she was feeling even a fraction of what he felt whenever they were alone together. That there was something to start, here. Something to break, and ruin, and lose, and miss.

“Have fun with the pirates,” was the last thing she said to him that day, so when he got home, he sat himself down in his study with a cup of chamomile tea and read until his eyes began to sting.

And then he crawled into bed and read some more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book mentioned is Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly. Thanks again, foxmurphy. :D


	6. Field Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A field trip, furious flirting, a ride home, a phone call, a change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proofreading occurred while tipsy. (As did posting. Wine!)
> 
> Next chapter will take a little longer again. Had this one pretty much written up in advance.
> 
> You're all really neat and nice and awesome. Okay. I should probably stop typing now.
> 
>  **Edit:** As of today (27th November) I don't have access to my laptop for at least a week. I won't be able to post until well after that. Sorry about that. :/
> 
>  **Edit II:** I've been reunited with my laptop. I'm writing away. :)

Gold hated school buses.

He only had to venture onto one a couple of times each year, but that was more than enough to have inspired a deep-seated hatred of the big yellow things. The seats were uncomfortable, the driver unwisely underpaid, the heating invariably broken, and the atrocious spelling of the graffiti never not beyond depressing to behold. He was surprised Belle hadn’t yet taken a marker to those misplaced apostrophes, at least. _His_ fingers were itching to do it.

But to go on a field trip, one had to join the teenage rabble on the bus, unfortunately. Usually, he skipped out on field trips altogether. He could lie to himself and pretend he’d just decided to come along today on a whim, but really, he was starting to get past that childish nonsense. He knew very well he’d only tagged along because of her.

It was a nice enough day for it, at least. The sun was out and the wind was relatively forgiving for this time of year.

Belle sat by the window, and he sat next to her. It had just happened that way; as if it were the most natural thing in the world that they should somehow always end up sitting next to one another if they could. Jackson and Carol were at the front of the bus, chatting and occasionally begging the students to calm down before the driver - who was probably deaf - crashed the bus. He and Belle, on the other hand, weren’t even bothering.

She was looking out of the window, and he wondered what she was thinking about. It was very difficult not to stare at her when the sun was shining on her face like that. There weren’t many leaves on the trees yet, but they cast pretty dancing shadows on her face as they drove past them, making her blue eyes turn to silver and back again, over and over.

So yes. Difficult not to stare. But he forced himself to look away. The handle of his cane looked rather nice in this light, too. Very shiny. It looked just about as expensive as it was.

“Would it be weird of me to compliment you on that thing?” asked Belle, nodding towards the gold-plated symbol of his pride and obstinacy. She must have caught him admiring it, which was good timing, because only seconds before, he had been admiring _her_.

“Not really. I’m rather fond of it myself,” he shrugged.

“Can I see?”

He had meant to hand it to her the moment she asked - he really had - but his arms were heavy as stone all of the sudden, and his mouth had bitten back the words ‘of course’ and left him gawping at her. It only took her a second to notice his hesitation and tell him, “Never mind. Silly thought,” and for some reason, that snapped him out of it.

“No, no. It’s fine. Here,” he said, holding out his cane for her to take. He almost told her it had been a while since he’d let anyone hold it, but well. Better not.

As he watched her trace the simple design with a single fingertip, Gold realized that Belle’s tactile tendencies ran deep. He wondered with a secret smile how many times she’d been told to look with her eyes, not her hands.

“I got a letter from Gerald’s parents,” she said quietly, turning the cane in her hands, making the handle catch the sun and gleam again.

Gold cast a quick look at where he thought the boy had been seated to make sure he was well out of earshot. He was sitting at the front of the bus, his head resting against the window. Didn’t that hurt? This bus was vibrating like mad. If the boy was truly managing to get some sleep like that, perhaps there was something to be said for starting school an hour later. Reassured that the boy wasn’t going to overhear, he turned to face Belle and asked her, “Have they resorted to written abuse, now?”

“It was an apology,” she said.

“Really?”

“Mhm. Interesting wording, actually. Something about taking my kindness for granted. Sounded familiar.”

She was staring holes right through him, smiling just the slightest bit in a way that was actually rather terrifying. Gold swallowed, knew that he had to confess, hoped he didn’t have to go find her another antique bookmark in one of the books he kept in his attic, licked his lips to help the dryness and explained, “I just told Higgins she might want to make sure her staff wasn’t being harassed, that’s all. I didn’t…”

Belle tilted her head to the side and raised a single eyebrow. Her smile grew a little bigger on one side, and how could she make him want to run away from her and kiss her at the same time? How was she doing that?

“I didn’t threaten to beat them with my cane if they didn’t write you an apology,” he insisted, hoping he didn’t sound as nervous as he felt. “I just wanted them to stop bothering you, Belle. Higgins must have used my phrasing.”

She tortured him with her stare for a few more seconds, and then she softened. Lit up. Smiled and laughed under her breath. Jesus Christ. She was probably just trying to give him a heart attack. That was probably what it was. Attempted murder.

“Maybe some other week I’d have been annoyed you didn’t tell me about it, but they really wore me down. I’m just glad they’re backing off,” she said, tapping his cane on the floor of the bus just once, then handing it back to him. The handle was warm in his hands, now. “Really, though, I’d prefer it if you checked with me, first. For future reference.”

“Of course. Yes. I’ll do that,” he said, nodding.

“Oh, and - ” She leaned a little closer, lowered her voice to a mock whisper and told him, “I know about the curtains, too.”

“How did you know about that?” he blurted.

“I didn’t, actually!” she laughed.

“Oh, for f- ”

Quickly looking around to see if any of the students had been eavesdropping (it seemed not) Gold swallowed that word just in time and contented himself with shaking his head disapprovingly, biting down on his smirk.

Clever little…

“You were bluffing,” he growled.

“Yup! I’ve always wanted to pull that off.”

“Savor the moment. I’ll never fall for it again.”

“Yeah, well, at least you can stop pretending you’re not a big softie, now. The game’s up, sunshine.”

No. No, it wasn’t. Not quite. If the game was actually up, he’d have jumped out of the back of the bus already, but he was still there, sitting next to the world’s smuggest English teacher with a grin so wide she looked like her head might split in two.

All ready for a fascinating day full of local fishing industry history and a spot of Belle French’s delightful torture.

…

The woman babbling on quite competently about handmade fishing nets up ahead was another reason he usually skipped out on these field trips. There was no need for his knowledge, here. Shepherds was what they were - he and the other teachers. Minders, really. They took it upon themselves to break the painful silence when the tour guide asked the kids if there were any questions or remarks. They started the applause at the end of the guided tour or a presentation. Made sure nothing that wasn’t covered by the school insurance got broken or went missing, and hissed at Daniels and his ilk to be quiet and stop touching things. To say that this was not his favorite part of the job would be an understatement, and at the beginning of the year, the prospect of an empty teacher’s lounge today would have made his whole week, but now he just…

Well, he wanted to be with her.

So there they were, walking slow, bringing up the rear of a long procession of uninterested, sleepy teens. They kept an eye out for unruly behavior, but mostly they just chatted, pointed out terrible paintings on the wall and wondered out loud what the strange looking things in the display cabinets were because they hadn’t heard the tour guide from all the way at the back.

In the middle of one such guessing game (“A float?” “Just looks like a jug to me.”) his phone buzzed in his pocket. A text back from Neal, probably, and a quick look at the screen confirmed it.

“Sorry,” said Gold, feeling Belle’s curious eyes on him as he fiddled to unlock his phone.

_Say hi to future step mom for me_

Oh. Good God.

Gold quickly checked to see if Belle had been reading over his shoulder, but she was just looking straight ahead. Until she wasn’t anymore.

No time to text back. He locked the screen and put his phone back in his pocket, tightened his grip on his cane and hoped Belle wouldn’t ask. Please, don’t let her ask…

She gave him a questioning look. “Everything alright?”

Well, that was to be expected.

“Yes, yes. Everything’s fine,” he assured her, smiling and nodding perhaps a bit too enthusiastically.

“Must have been some text…” she muttered.

“What do you mean?”

Her eyebrows knitted together, teeth worrying her lip, Belle waited a few seconds, then murmured, “You’re, uh… blushing. A bit. Did some lucky lady swoop in and snatch you up?”

“No!” he damn near cried out, jerking away from her and putting far too much weight on his bad ankle in the process. Fuck. He cringed, tried not to groan, looked away so that he wouldn’t see the pity in her eyes. “No. It’s the heat. The temperature difference. It’s much hotter in here, and…”

When he dared to look over again, she quirked an eyebrow and the rest of his sentence curled up and died. He waited for two straggling students up ahead to stop looking at them over their shoulders. “I haven’t… been snatched up,” he said, voice almost a whisper, heart pounding somewhere right above his stomach. What the hell was _that_ doing _there_?

Belle raised her eyebrows, mouthed a voiceless _oh_ and nodded. “Alright. Me neither. If you were wondering.”

“Good.”

Fuck.

Her eyes widened and so did his for just a second. “I mean, I… Alright, was what I meant. I wasn’t… Uh.”

Why couldn’t he look away? How was it that he couldn’t even look away and spare himself? He was forcing himself to watch the look on her face turn from surprise to realization to outright glee, and now she was grinning so bright he thought his eyeballs would burn to a crisp and actually, that didn’t seem so bad right now; it would hurt but at least he could _stop looking_.

Ah, but there, straying from the herd was his unlikely guardian angel, touching something he should definitely not have been and in doing so giving Gold a good reason to finally tear his eyes away from Belle to call out, “Daniels! Put that back!”

Free from the clutches of her confounding smile, Gold felt safe again. Well, a little safer, at least.

Barking and glaring and telling someone ‘no’ was familiar grounds.

Blushing and stammering and gawking was a slippery slope to disaster.

…

Come lunchtime, Gold’s stupid, treacherous old heart had calmed itself down somewhat. Since the weather was so nice, they’d brought their packed lunches to the park by the maritime museum, and the kids seemed happy enough to sit on the grass and laze around for a bit. Again, somehow he ended up sitting right next to Belle on a charming little wooden bench full of carvings he didn’t dare investigate for fear of discovering something obscene in the space between his thigh and hers.

They hadn’t really said much to one another after he’d barely stammered his way out of a confession. She had offered him an apple, though, and this time he had accepted. They were as delicious as they looked. Calmly munching on her apple with a little smile ever present on her face, she stared at the students and various passersby until all of the sudden Gold witnessed her calm, carefree look vanish. In place of it: as close to a scowl as she could ever get with a face that lovely.

“Elliot! Marcy! I see you! Behave!” she called out. Gold followed her glare and saw the two lovebirds in question quickly release each other’s hands and break apart.

“Hiding behind a tree _that_ thin, really?” Belle muttered, shaking her head and smirking. “Amateurs. From right here, I can see about three different spots that would be perfect for their purposes.”

“You make yourself sound like an expert,” Gold huffed.

“Perhaps I am,” she muttered, playfully and subtly pushing her elbow against his. “Didn’t you ever sneak off during a field trip with someone?”

“No! Did you?”

“Yes! I thought you were a rebel, Gold!” she teased. “Or was your sheep painting adventure a one time thing?”

That smirk of hers would be the death of him, and this conversation was clearly trouble, but still he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He hadn’t learned his lesson at all.

“I thought you were going to forget about the sheep?”

“Have you forgotten about the cow?” she shot back with a curious smirk. Didn’t even miss a beat. Unlike his heart. (She was making it do a lot of silly, anatomically impossible things today.)

“I just sneaked off to smoke,” he mumbled, clumsily avoiding that last question but probably answering it all the same. “At school. Not on field trips. Didn’t have many of those.”

“By yourself? Just to smoke? Really?”

“Yes.”

Two seagulls fighting over half an abandoned sandwich made quite a ruckus in the parking lot behind them, but he could still hear Belle’s little _humph_ of disbelief.

He shouldn’t have looked over at her. Her looks were making him spill truths today.

“Alright,” he sighed. “Maybe one or two girls. But those were just fumbling bike shed shenanigans heavily regretted by both parties immediately after.”

Her eyes widened and her eyebrows shot up. “The _bike shed_ , huh?”

Gold shrugged and tried to look casual about it, which was rather difficult to do when her teasing tone ran a shiver up his spine.

“So you would take a girl down there, stare into her eyes until her knees went weak, lean down and - ”

“Down?” he scoffed. “Even girls a year younger were giants compared to me. I needed a bloody stepladder.”

Hm. She didn’t laugh like he thought she would. Instead, she took another bite from her apple, let her eyes move over his face thoughtfully as she chewed, then swallowed and said, “Wouldn’t have had that problem with me.”

Heat rushed to his face and he just knew he looked as shocked as he felt, so he quickly forced a laugh that probably made him even more obvious, and oh fuck. _Fuck_. Even after he managed to look away from her calm, steady smile and to the trees up ahead, he still saw her. He couldn’t not see her. Her careless words had conjured up impossible images of his hands either side of her head against the wooden bike shed wall, glancing down into her shirt to catch a glimpse of lace over soft white skin, looking back up to drown in blue, her lips parting as she leaned up and -

No. Nope. _Absolutely_ not.

He cleared his throat and with a tone he hoped sounded vaguely bored and uninterested muttered, “Would have had a hard time tracking you down on the playground since you wouldn’t have been born yet.”

There. If that didn’t stop her in her tracks, then…

Then what?

“Yes, well, you know,” she lilted, crossing one leg over the other. Gold swallowed. “Hypothetically, if we’d been at school together. Use your imagination.”

Use his… He barely did anything else these days.

“Shouldn’t be too hard, I think,” she added. “In a sense, we’re at school together now.”

Yes. Alright. This was getting difficult to explain away. When he dared to look over, she had the most devious little smirk twitching at the corners of her mouth. In this moment, he couldn’t deny it. The heat on his face and just behind his ribcage was too intense to ignore. She was playing him like a fiddle. Chipping away at his layers of stone to get at the nervous, lovestruck teenager within - which was bad news, because one of the only upsides to old age was better self-control.

He opened his mouth to say something. Anything. No idea what. But then Murphy, a gangly young man with an incomprehensible haircut came walking up to their little bench and popped the bubble of the moment.

“Mr Gold, is there - ”

What the boy was going to ask him then would forever remain a mystery, because suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere there came Daniels, shaking his head, hissing, “Dude. I swear to God,” grabbing his friend by the arm and pulling him away.

Huh.

Gold glanced over at Belle to see if she was just as confused as he was. She furrowed her brow and shrugged, and together they watched and listened to Murphy’s sputtering protests as he was being dragged away.

“But I needed to ask -”

“Ask Mr Cho. He knows.”

“But you don’t even know what I…”

The wind blew away the rest of that sentence, and Gold’s hair in front of his eyes.

“That’s a new one,” he said, pushing that errant lock of hair away again. “Wonder what that was about.”

“Don’t ask me. Kevin’s _your_ favorite. If anyone knows what he’s thinking, it’s you.”

Gold jerked his head back as if she’d just spoken in tongues. “Daniels is not my…”

But Belle had put on a charming half smirk and raised a single eyebrow, and gone was the rest of his sentence. Not blown away, but swallowed.

She was right. He was fond of the boy.

The wind blew that lock of hair in front of his eyes again, and Gold cursed it under his breath. “Yes, alright.” He brushed his hair out of his face yet again. “But that doesn’t mean I know what he’s thinking. I don’t even know if _he_ knows what he’s thinking.”

“I think it’s cute. You two have got this begrudging respect for each other. Kind of like the loving relationship between a slightly crooked world weary cop and a charming criminal who keep foiling each other’s plans.”

“Oh, be fair. Daniels has his charming moments, too,” he joked, and he relished her little cackle for a moment. That was good. As long as he could make her giggle, it felt like he had the upper hand. Like he wasn’t drowning in her words and their endless variable meanings.

But oh, she turned the tables right quick, reaching up to tuck that rebellious lock of hair away properly once and for all, her fingertips soft against his forehead for a brief moment, her giggles gone but her smile still there.

“So. About your school days…”

Oh, dear. She wasn’t letting up. And he still felt the ghost of her fingers on his temple and he was pretty sure his mouth had dropped open. He disguised it by quickly flicking his tongue over his lips as if that was his intention all along.

“What about them?”

“Did you have a leather jacket?” she asked. “I’m trying to build up a mental image, here.”

“Unfortunately not. I would have liked one. School blazers. Duffle coat in winter.”

“Ah, school uniforms. Me too. I was really good at hemming school dresses so subtly just a little bit each day that by the end of the year, I’d barely gotten written up for uniform infractions.”

Gold had to laugh at that. That was just perfect. A little bit unexpected but fitting all the same. “You did that?” he asked, risking a sideways glance and finding her smiling and nodding.

“Oh, yes! I was _not_ a fan of those dowdy knee-length monstrosities.”

He was only getting himself into more trouble by engaging her on this, and yet… “Was this a matter of inviolable, deeply held fashion principles, or did it have something to do with those field trip snogs?”

Belle threw her head back but her laughter was silent. She grinned up at the sky, shrugged and said, “A little from column A, a little from column B, and then just a touch from column C.”

“C? Dare I ask?”

“Mr Kim, the ridiculously hot geography teacher.”

Gold raised his eyebrows and struggled not to smile, but it seemed Belle was fighting her own. Shyer than his. Quick, and flickering in and out like a candle. “Liked him a bit too much,” she added quietly.

He felt his stomach doing something fluttery and curious. Those words sounded familiar, and significant, but he couldn’t…

_A bit too much, maybe._

And then the edge was gone. The fire in her eyes and the electric charge that had laced her voice were nowhere to be found. There was warmth, still - but no danger. The conversation turned to work, and it was meaningless and superficial, but there was comfort in it somehow.

It had been a roller coaster ride of a day, but the train was slowing down. It felt a little bit as if they had both run out of words. And yet, on the bus, they sat next to each other again regardless and shared the silence. She stared out of the window, like she had on the way there. He tried not to stare at her, like he had then, too. He hadn’t gotten any better at it yet.

And then they parted ways and herded their overexcited sheep back to their respective classrooms. Gold let them talk (or bleat) for the last half hour or so, even though on any other day the noise would have been intolerable. He just wasn’t in the mood for long dead men with ridiculous mustaches and their long suffering, oft forgotten female contemporaries, that was all.

Because he was stuck on her. Stuck on Belle French and every single word she’d said today.

They hadn’t been snatched up. She knew about the bike shed. She liked… She liked a bit too much.

Would she drop by, later? If he walked her to her car, might she tell him something else to make him blush? Would he find the courage to do or say something? To ask her? Or tell her. Or _let_ her.

When the bell rang and the students filed out in a hurry, Gold let himself sink deep in his chair with a sigh. A little bluejay landed on the windowsill and flew right off again, and he wondered if that was that very same one that liked to flutter about in his garden in the morning.

No. Silly thought.

It was warm out, and the light was gorgeous. He didn’t want to stay inside. He tried to do a little work, but the sighs kept coming and he was annoying himself so incredibly much that after a minute or three, he swept all of his things into his satchel, switched off the lights and ventured into the hallway. Perhaps Belle was already heading his way. Perhaps she was staying late again. If she was, he might sit with her for a while.

But not on her desk.

Would she recognize his footsteps the way he recognized hers? Probably not. But perhaps she would hear the tapping of his cane on the black and white tiled floor as he approached her open door.

There was a slight breeze. That one lock of hair had stayed put since she’d put it back in line with her soft little fingers and it wasn’t budging now, either.

Ah. Her window was open. That explained it.

Belle was sitting at her desk, biting her lip, bent over a book spread open in her lap. She’d pulled her hair up into a bun - probably to keep it from falling in front of her eyes. That was a curious reading position, wasn’t it? Almost as if she was guarding it. Shielding it. It reminded him that he had to finish that book on pirates so he could give it to her. Well… lend it to her, he supposed, but like that t-shirt, he would rather she kept it.

He probably ought to knock before she looked up and wondered how long he’d been staring. His knuckles on the doorframe made an oddly satisfying hollow sound. Belle looked up and slowly, prettily, her lip slid out from between her teeth and her eyes grew wide.

“Did I startle you?” he asked.

“No! … Well, a bit.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay. Guess I’m a bit jumpy,” she said, her giggle sounding just a little strained somehow. Or was he imagining things?

As they exchanged smiles, she slowly closed her book and slid it into her bag. He caught a glimpse of the cover, and…

Had she just been sitting there reading a novel?

“You, uh. You’ve got your stuff with you,” she remarked, nodding towards his satchel. “Were you heading out already?”

“Yeah.” Gold nodded and tried to make sense of her strange, nervous smile. “Were you working?”

“I was, but I’m done now.”

“So am I,” he said, forgetting for a moment that he’d sort of already said that, in a way. “Walk you to your car?”

“Oh. I didn’t drive today.”

“Do you need a ride?” he blurted. Probably sounded a little too eager. But then again, there was a chance he had caught her in a lie just then (that book didn’t look like work at all) so Gold didn’t feel too embarrassed about it.

The balance was shifting.

“I was hoping you’d offer.”

In the parking lot, he opened the door for her, and she climbed in with a little appreciative smile. When he walked around to the other side, he was momentarily distracted by how small she looked in his car. He wasn’t _that_ much taller than her. Did he look just as silly, he wondered?

“Do you need the address?” she asked, buckling herself in. “We were a little bit drunk when you walked me home, weren’t we?”

“Just a bit,” he laughed. “I remember.”

The drive was quiet, like the drive back on the school bus. Belle was staring out of the window again and the sunset made her hair glow golden red. Her hand was in the middle of the seat, fingers tapping softly against the leather - a rhythm Gold couldn’t hear.

He wanted to drive her by the woods and show her where he saw that deer that winter morning, but he very sensibly took her home instead. Her home, of course. To her quaint little powder blue apartment building with the bent creaky iron wrought gate and the weird garden gnome standing guard.

But when they got there, and he’d switched off the engine, she didn’t move an inch. He heard her sigh, though, and for a moment he wondered if she’d nodded off. He made his voice as soft as he could so as not to shock her out of her sleep and said, “See? I remember.”

Ah, finally she looked up. No, she wasn’t asleep, but she looked a little dreamy, though. A little worried, too, with her lips pressed together and her brow furrowed in thought. Gold only realized his hand had somehow gotten near hers on the leather seat when suddenly the lightest touch of her little finger against his shocked him to the core. Some strange, purely electric force to the very center of his body. He pulled away before he realized just what had happened, disguised his sharp intake of breath by clearing his throat and reached for the car door.

“What are you doing?”

“I was… going to open your door for you,” he said. God, his throat felt dry. She was like the desert sometimes, and a hurricane sometimes too.

“Really?” she asked, her worried look slowly morphing into a little grin that would have scared the living hell out of him earlier but was actually a little reassuring now. At least she wasn’t offended. Didn’t think he thought she had some horrid infectious skin disease.

Gold put on his best mask of cool indifference and mumbled, “Well, I did I open it for you when you got in. You didn’t mention it then.”

“Sure, but you were standing there anyway. _This_ is an extra effort.”

“Well!” he huffed. “I was going to let it go and let you open the door yourself, but now you’ve gone and made it into a thing. Stay put.”

He clambered out and left her laughing in his car, walked around, opened the door for her and bit down on his grin as she climbed out smirking and shaking her head.

“That was ridiculous, Gold,” she teased.

Didn’t stop her from playing along, did it?

“I help you in, I help you out,” he decided. His heart beat a little faster in his chest when he added, “Symmetry,” because the word had summoned the ghost of her wet drunken kisses on his cheeks again.

She seemed a little bit surprised he’d remembered, or brought it up.

“I’m not sure that’s symmetrical, actually,” she mused, scrunching up her nose. God, she was adorable. She just did these _things_ to him he hadn’t felt in so very long. She was just so incredibly… “Maybe if I’d helped you out of the car. And then stole it,” she mused, nodding seriously.

“Yeah… Yeah, it doesn’t make sense, in retrospect. I just…”

Belle smiled, reached around him to push his car door shut (a whiff of her rose perfume made him want to lean in) and then all of the sudden she put her hand on his arm. Just above his wrist.

“Thanks for driving me home.”

He should probably tell her it was his pleasure entirely. Or…

While her hand was still on his coat sleeve and she was still close enough, Gold took a small step towards her, leaned down and kissed her cheek. Quickly, while his stomach spun wildly and his heart was pounding in his throat. He kept his lips pressed to her cheek just long enough to register the softness, and then he pulled back and tried not to look as if he was having a heart attack.

But he could have been.

Belle looked at him in wonder for a second or two while he considered apologizing and driving off with screeching tires, but then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek in return, and oh. Oh, he’d missed that. He’d missed that so much.

So why, when she gave him a fragile little smile and opened her mouth to say something did he blurt out, “I should go,” and take a step back? Why did he let her hand slip from his sleeve and fall limply to her side like that?

“Oh.”

Why? _Why?_

“Alright,” she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “Yeah. I should go and fix dinner.”

“Me too. Have a good evening, Belle.”

“You too.”

His heart was racing and he felt sick. His grip on the steering wheel was murderous almost, perhaps because he would have liked to strangle himself for running away like that.

He didn’t know what she had been about to say, then, but he knew that it wouldn’t have been a bad thing.

So why did he not want to hear it?

…

Gold sat on a stone bench out in his garden, letting his cup of chamomile tea get cold next to him. The stars were out, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was staring at his tea. Waiting for his son to pick up his phone. Feeling just a little sick to his stomach, still.

“Hey, dad.”

Just hearing his voice was nice.

“Neal. I’m sorry, I know you’ve been at work all day.”  
“You know I never said you could only call me on a Sunday.”

Yes. He felt better already.

“How was your day, son?”  
“Who cares?” he sang. “Update me on the Princess situation.”  
“I care!”  
“I don’t. Now spill.”

Gold laughed softly under his breath and took a moment to figure out what exactly it was he needed to say to him. The urge to call him had been so strong, earlier. His head was filled with Belle’s soft cheek and her lips and her disappointed smile, but he had heard Neal’s voice, too. Pointing out his tricks and defense tactics. Telling him he was scared.

“You were right.”  
“I know.”  
“I think I missed an opportunity.”  
“I think you missed a few. What made you realize?”

Even though no-one could see, Gold shrugged.

“I think she was going to say something sincere, and I just… I just left. I didn’t want to hear it. I was scared. Like you said, son. I’m scared.”

That was it. That was it exactly. It was fear. There was a hint of excitement and hope mixed in, but it had gone missing at the time. Lost in the wave of pure terror washing over him when her finger touched his, and then again when she was going to say something. Say something _real_.

“You’re scared you’ll lose her.”  
“Yes.”  
“So you pretend you can’t have her.”

His son was a genius and he was an old fool.

“If I don’t have her, I can’t lose her. I know it’s ridiculous.”  
“It is, yeah. But I get it.”

Gold sighed and tried to scrape the bottom of his barrel of excuses for something stupid to say, but it seemed he was fresh out. So there was silence. He heard his breathing on the other end. He heard his son’s girlfriend move about somewhere in the room.

“I’ll leave you to it, son. You’ve earned your rest.”

“Be brave, dad.”

…

Gold was getting ready for bed when a bright bluish white flashing light on his bed caught his eye. His phone. He’d tossed it there while he was getting into his pajamas. Neal? Higgins with another request? Gold let his shirt drop to the floor, frowned and grabbed the infernal thing.

But there was that picture. Him and her, both blushing just a little bit. He still had his glass of whisky in his hand.

He’d never answered a call quicker in his life.

“Hey! Belle!”  
“Hey. Is this a bad time?”  
“Not at all,” he said, ignoring the fact that he was half naked from the waist up and it was rather chilly up in his bedroom.

“I, uh…”

Gold sat down on the edge of his bed. She laughed a strangely nervous soft little laugh and he imagined her shaking her head.

“This is embarrassing,” she said.  
“What do you mean?”  
“I could be imagining things, but when you dropped me off, you… seemed a little… I don’t know. Did I annoy you today?”

That unpleasantly tight feeling in his stomach was back. He shook his head - more to himself than to her, of course - and told her, “No. Of course not.”

“But I asked a lot of questions today, and you’re so difficult to read sometimes. If I annoyed you -”  
“You didn’t.”

He had to interrupt her, there. It was rude, but she was killing him. He wanted to drive over and pull her into his arms. Wanted to fall to his knees and tell her she could never in a million years talk too much, or ask him too many questions. Never.

“You’re not just saying that?”

And the fragile hint of hope in her voice wasn’t helping much.

“You’d have noticed. I promise.”  
“So we’re okay?”  
“Of course we are.”

Belle sighed, and so did he, because that meant she believed him, and that was an incredible relief. “Okay. Alright. Good. I’m glad,” she said. “But… If you wanted to ask me a bunch of impertinent questions to maybe balance things out a bit, that would make me feel even better.”

Well.

_Am I losing my mind or were you flirting today?_

“Did you have a leather jacket?”

She snorted, and the sound made him smile.

“I’m serious.”

_What were you going to tell me before I ran away like a coward?_

“So am I.”  
“I’m seriously offering, here. Ask me anything.”

_Could I have you?_

“I can’t think of anything.”

He wanted to call her sweetheart. His sentences sounded so cold to his own ears without the endearments that came to mind whenever she sounded so unsure.

And _he_ was cold. He didn’t want to put down the phone, so he wasn’t going to finish getting dressed for as long as she was still there talking to him. What he did instead was slip under the covers, trying not to rustle the sheets or groan when he put too much weight on his bad ankle and tip her off that he had actually been about to turn in. The comforter was cool against his bare chest. It would get warm soon enough.

“Belle?”

“Mm?”

He had to be brave. At least a _little_ brave.

“Sorry for being strange, earlier. You didn’t imagine that.”

Her sigh was so deep it sounded like she was standing on the pier on a windy day. “Thank you for telling me. It’s nice to know I wasn’t being dramatic.”

“It wasn’t really anything you said or did, I assure you. It’s just that… I’ve just been keeping to myself for an awful long time.”

“Hey. It’s okay. I think I get it.”

“You do?”

“I think.”

His tired old heart was no longer ready for slumber. It beat, pumped, dropped down into his stomach and made an awful fuss. Underneath his comforter, Gold wasn’t cold anymore, but the hair on his arms stood upright and there was a tingle at the back of his skull, moving steadily down his spine as he listened to her breaths and waited for her clever words to pin him down and pull his disguise up.

“I’ve been trying too hard to befriend you. You’re a lone wolf.”

But she was wrong.

“No,” he said quickly. Decisively. He needed to cut down that notion and make sure she didn’t spend another second thinking that.

“No?”

“I’m not. At least, I’m trying to change that, but it’s been difficult - and Belle… what you’ve been doing…”

If he could just push through this. If he could just push a single brick from his wall and show her he was trying, reaching, willing. It was almost physical, that feeling - a pressure that kept him and his endless layers of armor pressed close together. It felt as if he was at the bottom of the sea and the water was squeezing the life out of him.

But it was just layers. It was armor. Not skin. He could take it off. He could _let her_.

Somewhere in his ribcage, something was pushing the words up.

“I’d be sad if you stopped,” he murmured.

The silence was searing. He couldn’t even hear her breathe anymore; he only heard his own heartbeat, or thought he did. One beat. Two beats. Three beats, and two more, and then:

“I needed to hear that. Thank you.”

He felt an impossible heat in the pit of his stomach. They were all but talking about it. All but confessing. The words they weren’t saying were so loud, so bold and meaningful. What else could he possibly say, now? He couldn’t think of a single thing, so he remained silent and waited patiently for Belle to swoop in and save the conversation. Or end it. Either way, it would have to be her, because he was exhausted now.

“I have another question, but it’s not about your school days, I promise.”

“Go ahead.”

“I was hoping you’d be chaperoning the dance, too.”

That wasn’t a question.

“Oh. They rope you into that, did they?”

“Yeah, but I don’t really mind. I’d just mind it even less if you were there. So are you chaperoning, too?”

“Yes,” he lied.

“Oh! Awesome!” she chirped, making him smile.

Soon it wouldn’t be a lie. He would retroactively have told the truth once he’d made a call and told them he could make an exception this year, so it didn’t count as a lie.

“And maybe we could talk about this lone wolf thing. In person.”

Was this happening?

“We should.”

“When you’re ready.”

“Yes. Soon.”

“Okay. Great, I… I’m looking forward to that.”

Why wasn’t he quaking in his boots? Why wasn’t he terrified, now?

“Me too.”

“One of us should probably hang up, huh?”

“Probably, yes.”

He couldn’t stop smiling. Perhaps she was smiling too.

“Or you could tell me about those pirates?”

She was smiling. He heard it in her voice.


	7. Prom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The DJ double booked, the chips aren't stale, there might be a talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Sorry about the delay. My laptop died and some other unpleasant things happened.  
> 2) Today’s word is: _gratuitous_  
>  3) The end notes will tell you what to blame lovely Tumblr user Foxmurphy for this time.

Gold woke up sweating with his face pushed into his pillow, the covers up over his head, and a soft focus image of her close and smiling fading out fast. A few turns later and he was free from the suffocating heat of his covers. The cool air in his bedroom chased away that last remaining hint of a pleasant dream. A bleary-eyed look at the alarm clock told him it was almost three in the morning, and he knew that if he closed his eyes right that moment, he might fall back asleep as if he hadn’t woken at all. But then he saw the book he’d left on the night stand. The book he’d been meaning to lend her. There were only about fifty pages left, give or take, so Gold stayed up, finished it, fell asleep and didn’t dream.

He didn’t wake before his alarm sounded. The shrill noise tore him out of his deep, black sleep. It was dark in his room, but there was light beyond the curtains, like some sort of magical doorway that would lead him somewhere bright and warm, and as he lay there squinting and stretching, he could have sworn that he’d dreamt of something pleasant. Something he might find beyond a door like that.

“Fuck,” he groaned, dragging himself out of bed and into the bathroom for a shower. Ridiculous thoughts like that were alright on a Friday evening, or on a Saturday or Sunday morning, but not on a weekday, when he had work to do. Not when he had to fold his face into something mildly intimidating so that none of them would get any ideas about acting up today. That was his weekday morning routine. Get out of bed, take a shower, put on his armor. Lately, Gold found himself having to put on an extra one, so that when Belle peeled one off him during their little chats in the morning, he could still turn his back to a classroom of bored teenagers and trust not to be hit with an eraser or a crumpled up piece of paper.

He was alright in the car, but the closer he got to his destination, the stronger he felt it - a feeling linked to the dream, but not a pleasant one. The other side of the coin, perhaps, and it was wrapping itself around him. It was the fear he hadn’t felt the night before when he recognized a little drop of excitement in her voice over the phone, in his safe bedroom bubble of dark colors and dim lights when he silently asked her not to give up on him. And that fear was squeezing his chest just the slightest bit, making him breathe quiet and shallow, as if there was something fragile in his ribcage, or some easily startled woodland creature cowering.

Some of it faded when he walked into the teacher’s lounge and found her fixing their tea and smiling as if she was happy to see him, which he still found difficult to believe on some level. Her smile and her cheery good morning brought back that vague feeling of something good but strange he had felt when the golden morning sun so rudely disregarded his curtains and demanded to be seen. Still, what was light and easy conversation before was now demanding all of his focus. It took effort to speak and to listen. The subject matter was trivial; they spoke of the weather and the day ahead, but her voice was barely reaching him through the sea of words they’d left unspoken for too long, now turbulent and thick between them. He knew he would have to wade through it at some point. He would have to swim towards her and meet her somewhere in the middle. Well, not the middle. Not even close. Belle had bravely crossed the distance for the most part, and still he was afraid of drowning in the verbal debt she was waiting patiently to collect.

She was sitting next to him with her knees pressed together, sipping her tea, and he watched her. He liked her skirt. He liked her cardigan, too; her hair fell over her shoulders in soft curls and the deep, almost reddish brown really suited that particular shade of blue. It was a few shades darker than the color of her eyes when the light didn’t hit them directly. And he was staring, he knew that, but she was letting him. She was ever so patient. He was ever so fucking slow. When she looked up from her tea, caught his stare and smiled, Gold started and disguised it by reaching for his satchel to take out the book he had finished reading the night before.

“There you go,” he said, offering it to her. “If you’re still interested.”

She abandoned her tea on the table to take the book from him and chirped, “I am! Thanks! You read pretty fast, don’t you?”

_When the woman I’m infatuated with expresses an interest in reading the book, yes._

“Depends,” he replied with a shrug. He watched her thumb through it until a familiar little smile appeared on her face, and he knew exactly what she’d found. He didn’t care so much this time, though. She’d called him out on it before. It was old news.

“Better keep that safe,” she said, handing him his makeshift bookmark - her number. “Wouldn’t want you to lose it. You know, in case there’s some sort of worldwide apocalyptic technological failure and you can’t use your cellphone.”

“What use would I have for your number, then? How would I call you when the phones don’t work?” he teased, slipping the little piece of paper in the front pocket of his jacket.

She seemed surprised by her own oversight, but quickly recovered with a shrug. “You’d still need a bookmark.”

“True.”

“If it happened right now, you wouldn’t need to call me anyhow. We could stick together.”

He snorted and jerked his head back in exaggerated disbelief. “You’d stick with the scrawny old fool with the limp in case of a technological blackout of apocalyptic proportions?”

“I would,” she decided with a nod. “And you’re not scrawny.”

Gold huffed and pretended to be distracted by a group of people walking by the open door of the teacher’s lounge, because he felt his smile grow out of control, and he wasn’t sure he wanted Belle to see. “No objection to the other descriptors?” he dared.

She didn’t answer right away, and Gold felt the nerves make their return. He swallowed and looked over just in time to see her stand up, and as she passed him on her way to the sink with her empty mug, she put her hand on his shoulder, squeezed gently and said, “No _problem_ with them.”

…

His classroom was stuffy and chalky, and the afternoon sun was shining pleasantly outside, painting everything brighter than it had been all winter. Gold was restless. He could have opened his windows and it would have helped, sure, but what he wanted - what he really wanted - was to head over to Belle’s classroom and see if she was still there, and what she was up to. He had caught her reading a novel the last time, and Gold couldn’t get that thought out of his head. Maybe he could sit with her for a bit, or maybe they could already head out together and they could -

Another little wave of fear washed over him.

Which is exactly why he swallowed his objections, stood up, and forced his legs to carry him out of his classroom and down the hall to where some fragile, hopeful little voice in the back of his head that was long ignored but getting ever louder told him she would be waiting for him. He had barely taken five steps before he heard the sound of her voice in the empty hallways. Gold stood still and listened. He could see her door was open from here, but he wasn’t close enough to see her.

“I could, but he’s probably still working.”

He took a few steps closer, quiet as he could. Her door was open, so was it spying, really? Was it really eavesdropping? She was making no effort to lower her voice at all.

“I know… Yeah, but - … No! It’s not pathetic!”

Yes. Yes, he was definitely eavesdropping, and he really ought to cough to make himself know, or turn back and come back in a few minutes, but… He could see her now, sitting at her desk. She had her phone in one hand and the other was playing with her lovely hair absently.

“I’m being productive while I wait! … No, reading.”

She leaned back in her chair, and Gold only just managed to stop himself from jumping away. If she looked his way, she would see him standing there in the distance. He wasn’t very close (the sound echoed far in these empty hallways) but she would surely still think it odd for him to just stand there, would she not?

“Soon, we said. … I don’t know… I don’t know! Soon!”

Was she discussing him with her friend? Gold swallowed and cursed his body for thinking this was cause to raise his pulse. He needed to turn around and head back, and he needed to do it now, but his limbs were heavy as stone and he was glued to the spot, even if the voice telling him to leave grew more and more urgent with every passing second.

“I know it’s not like me, but it’s his fault. He’s rubbing off on me. What if there’s a bloody good reason he’s being like this? It’s like when a cat keeps staring at something and you can’t see what it is, and - … Yeah. You just kind of start thinking there’s actually something or someone there. … Yeah, exactly like that.”

She thought him a cat staring at dust particles, did she? Gold bit down on his smile to keep from laughing and slowly, carefully turned around and began to head back to his classroom. He’d try again later. For now, he felt strangely comforted somehow, and oddly flattered that she was talking about him at all, if indeed it was him she had been talking about. But who else? Who else would she be waiting for? Who else would be making her believe in dust particle ghosts? That sounded like something only an idiot like him could be responsible for.

“I have to try,” was the last thing he heard her say before the distance between them was too great for her gentle voice to carry. It made him feel warmer.

He sat in his classroom and started out of the window for a few more minutes until he decided that he couldn’t spend a moment longer in here when Belle was over there, and the sun was out there. When he walked out of his room, she was already headed over, and they met in the middle, smiling and nodding. In the parking lot, she kissed his cheek and he kissed hers and how strange a thought it was that it would have been so easy to turn his head and have their lips brush instead. Stranger still the thought that that was what she wanted.

But then, why didn’t she make that quick little movement? If she knew that he was desperate to, why didn’t she bridge the gap? It would be a tiny action with tremendous consequences. A pebble dropped in the middle of the ocean sending a tidal wave over the shore. If she really wanted this, she would have - … No. Because he wanted this, and he couldn’t, either. And he’d rubbed off on her, she said. Was she just as scared as him? The mere thought that he had dimmed her light, put out her fire, taken the wind out of her sails made him feel awful.

“Tomorrow,” he blurted just as she made a move to open her car door. She turned around and looked at him, visibly confused.

“Tomorrow?”

“That talk,” he said with a decisive nod, despite his ridiculous heart rate. “Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.”

Her smile grew slow and looked a little strange. “Really? Tomorrow?” There was laughter in her voice.

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“Oh, no no,” she laughed. “No, that works for me. It’s just… Prom?”

 _Fuck_. If he had smacked his palm to his face like he wanted to, Gold knew his face would have been hot to the touch. “Oh, God. That’s right. I forgot about… I mean I didn’t… It’s not -”

He stopped stammering and just let her laugh at him for a moment, because there was no mocking edge to her tone. Just mirth. She could laugh at him all she wanted, Belle could.

“Tomorrow it is,” she said, smiling.

…

Boys in ill-fitting suits looking like clowns compared to their dates who had actually made an effort, questionable punch and budget snacks, and a DJ who looked a little bit as if he’d gotten stuck in a particularly good trip a few years back. If it hadn’t been for the prospect of getting to see her tonight, Gold would have turned on his heels and walked straight back out.

“Are those stale?” he asked a boy who had his fist in the chip bowl. “They look like they’d be stale.” The boy, swimming in his father’s sports jacket, shook his head and stuffed his mouth full. Gold raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Huh. What do you know,” he muttered.

“Are you knocking my prom, Gold?”

He turned around and found her standing right behind him in a pretty dress he hadn’t seen before. His heart really had to stop doing those stupid things it did whenever he saw her. It was getting out of hand. How long had she been standing there?

“ _Your_ prom, is it?” he asked, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin just a little bit, hoping that arrogant stance would cover up any proof that she’d surprised him.

“Well, I helped out at the last minute,” she said, smiling. “There were some issues, but I’m proud of how it turned out.”

She did look proud of her glittery little cliché of a prom, and it was very endearing. Gold rolled his eyes fondly and sang, “Alright!” throwing up his hands in surrender. “Apologies to the prom committee.”

“ _Thank_ you.”

“I didn’t know it would be eighties themed, though,” he said, nodding towards the DJ who had just transitioned rather smoothly from Like A Prayer to Karma Chameleon.

“It’s uh… not. It wasn’t supposed to be. The original DJ double booked and bailed at the last minute. This guy’s the only one who even picked up his phone.”

“Well, it’s better than silence, at least. I suppose.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, crossing her arms and looking out over the dance floor. “And the kids don’t seem to mind.”

“Is that that ironic enjoyment thing I’ve been hearing about?”

“That’s probably part of it,” she laughed. “But who doesn’t genuinely like eighties Madonna, let’s be real.”

Well, he wasn’t exactly a fan, but he nodded regardless and stuck his hands in his pockets. The pair of them stood there side by side, making small talk until Boy George finished his song and was followed by Cyndi Lauper, and Gold felt nervous. Hollow. This wasn’t the first time their conversation had slowed to a halt, but this time was different. This wasn’t comfortable. This was awkward, even, and Gold knew why. He knew Belle did, too. Every word he said was not one of the words he needed to tell her. Every little comment about the decor or the food was empty and meaningless, and yet the urge to talk about _anything but them_ was so strong Gold found himself clearing his throat to ask her, “We didn’t have these. Not like this. Did you?”

“In Australia? More or less. We call ‘em formals.”

“Same cultural significance?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her deeper voice warning him that _something_ was coming. “Like, the same percentage of attendees losing their virginity on the same night?”

And there it was. Gold cringed and shook his head, muttering, “Oh, God. Please don’t speak that into existence. Not this lot.”

“Are you scandalized?” Belle teased. “Seriously? You?”

“I’m not scandalized!” he insisted, looking away from her teasing smirk so he could try and feel a little less liquid inside. “I know what they get up to. I got up to it myself, but -“ Her sudden loud giggle made him choke on the rest of his words, so he simply folded his arms over his chest and shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” she cooed, the laughter still in her voice and in the little lines right next to her eyes. “I know what you meant. I’m just -”

“Poking the bear out of hibernation,” he muttered, finishing her sentence for her. She slowly closed her mouth, raised her eyebrows, then smiled a quick, curious smile. It was only then that Gold realized that he’d actually rather not have said that. It sounded strange. Almost annoyed. And if not that, it certainly sounded like it would lead up to the conversation he’d been promising her, and with a sudden pang of panic, every inch of him drenched by another cold wave of fear, Gold changed his mind. Not tonight. Not now. Not with expectation written on her face and not when he felt this small under her insistent stare, even thought she had to look up to talk to him. She must have read the change of mood on his face, because her smile softened and melted away to leave her looking at him as if he were a child with a high fever; with pity and concern.

“I need some fresh air,” he said, licking his dry lips. “I’ll be right back.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, it’s fine. Just a little headache. I should be fine if I get some fresh air right now.”

“Alright,” she replied, bemused.

Gold hoped his quick parting smile was reassuring, but he could imagine it wasn’t even close. He just had to get out of that gym, away from the sound and the colored lights and the eyes his dreams could never quite get right. Outside, leaning against the side of the building and staring up at a clear, star-dotted sky, Gold wished he still smoked. Something to busy his fingers and calm him down, something to make it look like he had a reason for being there that wasn’t a fear of fucking up something that hadn’t even happened yet. Gold wasn’t sure that if he had caught one or several of them smoking out here, he wouldn’t have offered a pardon in return for a cigarette, it was that bad.

He heard the door open with a creak and a distant blast of that fucking Human League song playing on inside, and suddenly his chest felt heavy, because what if that was her? What if she was so concerned she’d followed him out? What if he didn’t look as if he had a headache? What if she knew he was just being the world’s greatest coward? He couldn’t even bring himself to look.

“Party’s in there, sir,” came a familiar voice just a few steps away. Gold turned his head and saw Daniels standing by the door in a surprisingly well fitting suit - although he wasn’t sure what the appeal of those skinny ties was - and smiling at him with his hands in his pockets.

“Don’t you have a date to go charm?” he grumbled.

The boy moved closer, his shiny leather shoes tapping on the concrete until he stepped on the strip of grass Gold was standing on and came to a standstill in front of him, a few small steps away. “Do I?”

Gold raised an eyebrow. “Miss George,” he clarified, making sure Daniels could tell by the sound of his voice that he wasn’t in the mood for any games tonight.

“Yeah, I don’t think Fiona’s boyfriend wants me charming her. More importantly; she doesn’t.”

“Oh. I thought -”

“We’re just friends,” he sighed, taking a few more steps closer so he could lean against the wall right next to him.

This was… new. No punchline yet. No trick. No dangerous smirks and mischievous looks. He must have been turned down, and though he resented having come to care for this disaster of a boy, he did appreciate the way this new emotion (concern or pity perhaps) took away a little bit of that self-loathing he had been stewing in.

“Chin up Daniels,” he muttered. “She might come around.”

The boy had been staring at the tips of his shoes, but now he looked up and grinned, shook his head and said, “No, seriously, it’s fine. I don’t like her like that. I mean, we tried, but it didn’t work.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Nah, it’s fine. It was me, which I’m sure comes to you as a surprise,” he joked, and Gold couldn’t help but snort. “But we’re okay now. We’re friends.”

“Are you really, though?” Gold suddenly found himself asking.

Daniels made a strange face and asked him, “Is that weird or something? What do you do to all of your exes? Chew them up and spit them out?”

“Careful,” he growled.

Daniels muttered a soft, “Sorry,” but rolled his eyes and smirked all the same. Gold didn’t mind so much. There was a distance they needed to keep, here, but he could disregard the sass if he kept it to facial expressions, and no-one else was watching.

“If not a date to charm,” he continued, “don’t you have friends to get back to?”

“Oh, you mean the three or four guys that laugh whenever I do something stupid?”

Gold frowned at the bitter laughter lacing the words but nodded. The boy was different today, and he didn’t quite know what to make of it. He stared at him for a moment, his dark eyes moving over his face as if checking for his reaction to this different side of him on display.

“I don’t really care about them, and they only care about me when I’m acting like an idiot,” he explained. “When I’m on.”

He wasn’t surprised, exactly. If Gold hadn’t thought that there was depth to the kid, he wouldn’t have gotten this fond of him. He wouldn’t have tolerated his low level shenanigans and wouldn’t have been able to deal with his outrageous stunts with his blood pressure pretty much level, either.

“And what are you now?”

He stayed silent for a few seconds and stared at the brick wall in front of them. Then he shrugged, turned his head to smile at him and said, “Tired.”

He certainly did look it, and Gold felt for him. He had an inch on the boy, and at seventeen, there was no surprise growth spurt waiting in the wings for him. His black hair was tousled as if he’d been tossing and turning all night - although that could have been another fashion thing Gold didn’t ‘get’ - and the bags under his eyes were more pronounced than usual. He was handsome in the sense that there was probably a marble bust somewhere in a museum that looked a little bit like him. His aquiline nose made for an interesting contrast with his smart, annoying little mouth that looked more feminine than anything, and Gold had seen him fawned over by girls in the hallway on more than one occasion, so he seriously doubted that he wasn’t holding a torch for his friend, still. He could have had a date if he wanted. He was probably wallowing.

But he couldn’t just tell him to stop pining. He couldn’t tell him he was only seventeen years old, and that he was clever and charming enough to talk his way up anyone’s skirt, and that he had no business looking this glum when he had the rest of his life in front of him, no crippling fear of making a connection with someone who was reaching out to him, and no fucked up ankle that kept him from running when the mood struck him, and -

“Do yourself a favor and go to bed on time, Daniels,” was all he could bring himself to say. “On schooldays, at the very least. And dump those asshole friends of yours. I think you can do better.”

Daniels snorted and gave him a nod, which Gold returned. He looked away to stare at the wall and tried to focus on the muffled music, because there was nothing else to do in this silence. He didn’t want to tell the boy to fuck off back inside and leave him to hate himself, but to stand there with him and not speak a single word was odd, and so he focused on the music. He tried to make out a word, or a familiar chord progression - just anything to make this feel less strange.

“Mr Gold?”

The sound of his name drew his eyes away from the brick wall and to Daniels’ twinkling eyes. That was the first time he’d addressed him as such. Always ‘sir’ with him. Always different from everyone else, just for the sake of being the contrarian, especially when it didn’t matter at all.

“I’m glad we tried, Fiona and me. It’s not that it wasn’t messy, but I don’t regret it either. And if you can tell me to dump my asshole friends, I think I can tell you that you should go back inside.”

That little fuck.

That magnificent, knowing little fuck.

And he seemed fearless, now, staring at him with the most serious look he had ever seen on the kid, and Gold found that he was unable to react for a moment. He couldn’t even manage a glare or a scoff or a frown, because the voice in his head cheered and said _yes_ , of course he should go back inside. He should go in and take her hand and lead her somewhere where he could gather his courage and tell her how he couldn’t get her out of his mind anymore.

“I’m not saying there’s anything to tell,” Gold muttered, pushing himself away from the wall, “but if you tell anyone anything, Kevin, I will peel off your face and mail it to you.”

He walked in with a secret smirk and left his favorite student laughing. Just before the door fell shut behind him, and through music blaring right behind the closed gym doors, Gold heard the distinct clicking sound of a lighter.

Inside, he found her right where he had left her, next to the snack table that had started to look a little bare. She had a little smile on her face as she looked around the room, but he could tell from the other side of the gym that her brow was creased and she had been worried. And that was awful. And he had done that to her. And he should fix it. So he took a deep breath, sighed what he hoped was the last of his fear right out of his lungs and made his way over to her. The worry dropped from her face the moment she spotted him, and her smile turned genuine in the blink of an eye. He could tell by now.

“Hey! How’s your headache?”

“Oh, gone. Completely gone. Sorry about that.”

“I, uh… I know it’s crazy, but I thought you might have…”

“Bolted?”

There was something vulnerable in her laughter, and it pulled at his heartstrings so effectively it felt as if it was about to unravel in his chest. God, he wanted to wrap his arms around her so badly in that moment. Maybe he could, if he just got over himself, forgot about the nerves and the myriad ways in which he could fuck this up in the immediate or distant future, and asked her if they could have that chat, now. So he opened his mouth to ask, but then suddenly something made her screw up her face, and he swallowed the words back down.

“Bryan Adams?” she scoffed. “Are you kidding me?”

He hadn’t noticed, trying not to piss himself in abject terror as he’d been, but then he realized that those were indeed the extremely sappy first notes of Heaven. Gold groaned and rolled his eyes. “This is starting to feel like a wedding reception,” he muttered.

“Right? Now we just need a pair of crying mothers and some drunk and inappropriate uncles.”

He liked the way she sometimes gave him a little shove of her elbow when she joked around with him. It was cute, and completely unnecessary. As if she wanted to make sure he’d heard. He grinned and geared up to ask her again. Wanted no longer to hide from whatever it was that was happening between them.

But then: Daniels. Daniels, smelling of cigarette smoke, popping up next to Belle all of the sudden, making sure to give Gold a little wink to let him know that he was up to something before he coughed to get her attention, too.

“Oh! Hey, Kevin!” she chirped as she turned to see him standing there with his hands clasped meekly behind his back. “Having fun?”

“Yeah yeah, loads,” he said quickly, smirking like a devil. “I just wanted to say I think you and Mr Gold should dance.”

Belle stifled a giggle, and Gold snorted. What the actual fuck was the boy thinking? Had he not heard him when he told him he would remove his actual face from his actual skull and mail it to him if he didn’t mind his own business? Before he could remind him of that promise with a glare, Belle spoke up.

“I don’t think so, Kevin,” she said. See? What an idiotic move that was. What a preposterous thing to even consider. “I don’t think Mr Gold is up for it.”

“But you are!” cried Daniels. He turned to him. “Sir, she wants to dance!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

He made the mistake of looking over at her for confirmation that this was indeed the worst idea anyone had ever come up with, and his scowl melted under her fragile smile and the hint of red on her cheeks. He was conscious of his mouth having dropped open just a little bit, so he snapped it back shut. He swallowed and tried to shake his head, but it wasn’t working. He was just staring, now. She raised her eyebrows, bit her lip, smiled an arrow right through his heart and killed his resolve.

“Go on, sir!”

The boy’s voice sounded distant. He couldn’t hear him over his heartbeat and the blood rushing in his ears. She held out her hand, and his stomach flipped, because that meant he was going to do this. There was no way in hell he could leave her hand unheld if she was offering. And this wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t the bloody plan at all.

But he reached out, took her hand, and when she gave it a little reassuring squeeze, he forced a smile. She led them to the edge of the dance floor, and Gold tried not to think about the eyes on them. On her, in all likelihood, because she was gorgeous; and on him, because he was doing something they would have staked their lives on he would never in a million years have done. Her hand was soft, and her smile was going to make him crumble, so Gold looked at where his hand shakily met her hip instead. And no, actually, that wasn’t exactly helping either, so he took a deep breath as subtly as he could and then made eye contact.

“Leave room for Jesus, sir!”

Belle laughed, and Gold clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. To hell with that. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. Eleven-year-old him hadn’t been guilt tripped into taking children’s ballroom dancing classes by a rich, doting great aunt for nothing. Ankle be damned. It would hurt like hell tomorrow, and it would be worth it. And Jesus would just have to suck in his stomach or get lost altogether.

When her hand met his shoulder, he slid his hand a little further around her waist and let the heat in the pit of his stomach that always came whenever they looked at each other for longer than was necessary grow hotter and hotter, past the point where he usually broke down and looked away. Because he had two options, here. He could look at her, or he could look at the faces of the people he had spent years convincing he had no heart as he danced with the woman who had sneaked it right out of his ribcage when he wasn’t paying attention. So he looked at her smiling face as they moved and swayed slowly in circles. Despite the pressure in his chest. Despite a voice in his head screaming at him that he would go blind if he kept it up.

“How ancient is this DJ?” she asked, craning her neck so she could speak closer to his ear. They were closer to the speakers, now. It sent a chill down his spine to have her that close, but at the same time it was comforting to hear a hint of nerves in her voice.

“Cryogenically frozen in the eighties,” he replied, catching a smile from the corner of his eye when he leaned in as she had. She said something in return, but he didn’t understand. He frowned, mouthed, “What’s that?” and leaned in closer, not anticipating her to do the same. And now they were entirely too close, and she repeated, “I reckon he’s on something.”

“Must have snorted quite the line right before they froze him.”

When she laughed and nearly dropped her head on his shoulder, his arm itched to tighten around her waist and pull her close. Their clasped hands had ended up closer to their bodies. Not where they’d started off in the proper position at all. To turn it back into a dance instead of this almost-embrace, he made a move to twirl her, making sure she knew what to do. She spun around with ease, and they were dancing just as close again. So that plan failed, but he could hardly bring himself to care. She giggled, then bit her lip. Her eyes fluttered to his mouth, and his breath caught in his throat. He wasn’t imagining this, was he? This was hardly reading too much into a look. She looked down for a moment, shook her head, then looked back up and grinned.

And kept grinning. And grinning.

And he felt himself respond. It started as a strange, fluttery feeling in his chest that radiated up and outward and made his entire body feel warm. It traveled up to his face where it pulled at the corners of his mouth. “I’m going to need you to stop smiling like that,” he said. “It’s infectious, and I have a reputation to uphold.”

“You’re dancing to Heaven, and literally everyone is watching. I think that ship has sailed.”

“Oh, good God,” he groaned, clenching his eyes shut in despair yet again.

“Chin up, sunshine,” she laughed. “Could have been worse. Could have been Careless Whisper.”

“Don’t even joke!”

He was still smiling, although he was trying very hard not to. He would wrestle his lips back into place each time, but then he would catch her smile or feel her body shake in a sudden silent laugh and he would grin like a fool again. And there was something in her look that he couldn’t explain away. Gold liked to think that if they had been alone, he would have kissed her. Kissed her ten times over if she hadn’t slapped him after the first. He tried to focus on the warmth in his chest, on his hand that was somehow at the small of her back, now, and not on her hip anymore. She was warm. She was soft and lovely and she smelled of roses and it wouldn’t take more than a twitch of his arm to pull her flush against him. The thought was dizzying. Her proximity was dizzying.

The song ended. He let go of her hand and took a step back, sad at the loss of warmth and feeling vulnerable to the crowd, but he could still look at her and feel safe that way. If he didn’t look at anyone else, he could pretend they never saw. They moved away from the dance floor and back to their spot near the table in silence. He recognized the next song, now. Hall & Oates, honestly. _Maneater_. He glared at the DJ, but he just had that same zoned out grin on his face. Maybe not cocaine. Maybe something else.

“That was nice,” sounded her voice next to him. He looked over and saw her smiling shyly. He’d expected her to be a little smug, but there was none of that.

“Yes, it… It was, yes.”

“Thank you. I know that was hard for you.”

“Oh, no, that’s… yes,” he stammered, shaking his head, then nodding, then simply looking away to avoid saying or doing anything even more nonsensical.

“I, uh. Better go check on Carol. See if she needs me to do anything.”

“Yes. Of course. I’ll be… yes.”

“I’ll talk to you later. Right?”

The hopeful look in her eyes made his knees weak.

“Right.”

And so did her delighted grin.

The rest of the night was waiting for it to end, really, and Gold didn’t stray more than a few steps from his spot near the table, because even though Belle was quite busy making sure everything was in order, she would always flutter past him so they could joke about the music (“What do I get for not requesting _Gold_?” “Not murdered.”) and he wanted her to be able to find him whenever she did.

When the kids had left, the DJ was packing up and the clean-up began, she found him in his little safe spot where he had been waiting for her patiently, as she had been waiting for him for far too long.

“I’m supposed to help clean up, but maybe we can talk now?” she asked, her voice fragile with hope. “Before you go home?”

He could tell her no. He could go home right now and mend himself, or break himself into pieces again. He wasn’t sure which it was anymore, but he was leaning towards the latter. 

And he didn’t want to do that.

“Of course,” he said, and when she smiled and nodded towards the exit, he forced his feet to follow her. His ankle hurt, something treacherous inside of him was still telling him to run, but he would stay and talk. Something had changed - internally, externally, maybe both. But he was different, now, and he felt stronger somehow. It was terrifying, but it was beautiful. Maybe it would all be alright.

“Come on,” she said, looking over her shoulder to make sure he was following her down the darkened hallways. He should have brought his cane, but he was glad he hadn’t. He could still minimize the limp, even though every step was a nightmare. He didn’t want to be the old man with the limp and the cane with her. Not when they were about to…

What? What was about to happen? There was something in the air between them and it was markedly different from what it had been. Well, no, perhaps not different… Stronger. Yes, that was it. Stronger. Thicker. He couldn’t ignore it anymore, even if he wanted to. She disappeared into his empty classroom and he followed her in. They were tied together. He felt her pull at him. His heart was racing and his mouth was dry. His stomach was doing somersaults and he was sure he hadn’t felt this much like a sixteen-year-old when he actually _was_ one. Once inside, Belle hoisted herself up on his desk, then patted the space next to her with a little smile. Was he supposed to -

“Come sit.”

Oh, alright. He shuffled closer and joined her. Even with his ankle screaming in pain, he had much less difficulty getting up there she did with her adorable small stature. And now they were close. Almost thigh to thigh, sitting in the darkness - the only sources of light the lamp posts outside casting a yellowish orange glow through the windows, and the light in the hallway cutting a bright angular shape on his classroom floor. He felt sick and he wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t having a heart attack. He watched her watch him; her eyes were on his knees, then on his hand as it held onto the edge of the desk uselessly, nervously. When he looked at her face, he saw her swallow, and when she turned the tables and looked straight at him, he looked at her knees instead. They’d switched.

“I’m still trying to make my mind up. On how to do this, I mean.”

He thought he had made a questioning sound (something like ‘Oh?’ perhaps) but it turned out he hadn’t, because she raised an eyebrow and said, “You’re not gonna be much help, are you?”

He blinked dumbly and opened his mouth just in case there were some words hiding in there, waiting to come out, but there was nothing, and he probably looked like an idiot.

“That’s alright,” she said. “I’ll talk. Promise to listen to me? No running off?”

He swallowed a joke about his limp and nodded. “I promise.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “Good. Then… Okay. I’ll start at the beginning.”

But she didn’t start just yet. She stared ahead, and Gold admired her profile against the darkness beyond the wall of windows that looked out the grass field in front of the school and the road that bordered it. A car passed. The light of its headlights hit a reflective traffic sign, bounced off a window in the teacher’s lounge to reach the two of them and bathe them in bright white for just a split second. It seemed to trigger her words.

“We met before my first day here.”

“Did we?” he managed, not really knowing why he wanted to lie at this point, not really able to stop himself either way.

“Mm. Sort of. In the library. Don’t you remember me?”

Her pretty blue eyes searched his almost imploringly, and he couldn’t take much more of a look that sincere, so he nodded and said, “I do,” and felt better when he saw the worry fall from her face, even if just a little bit.

“Do you remember me staring and smiling at you like an idiot?”

_Yes._

“You looked perfectly intelligent.”

Belle drew in a breath and it sounded a little shaky. She snapped her mouth shut as if she’d changed her mind about saying something, but then she sighed deeply, looked him bravely in the eye and said, “Well, that was me trying to get you to flirt.”

He made another attempt to say something - make some sort of noise, at least, that would tell her he was still listening, but the tight feeling in his stomach was keeping him from doing anything more than stare. His mouth opened, his lips rounded into an _oh_ but that was it. That was all he could manage.

“I’m not exactly used to having to be the one to approach someone,” she continued, looking away to stare at the blackboard in front of them. “Normally I’d just have to bat my lashes, smile, wait for it and start reeling in, but… nothing, with you. Not even a nibble. And then you just left, and, well, I figured, this is a relatively small town, right? And if I see this guy around again I’m going to just ask him out. But then the next time I saw you, it was, uh… more complicated.”

Loud laughing voices echoed in the hallway and faded out quick, but they both still turned their heads to look at the open door. No-one would walk by. The voices were gone.

“I couldn’t just ask a colleague out like that. Not that soon, anyway. But I was still intrigued, so I just kept flirting. I kept dropping hints. And I was really hoping you’d take them eventually so I wouldn’t have to embarrass myself like this.”

She wasn’t embarrassing herself. He wanted to tell her that. He needed to kiss her. He couldn’t move a fucking inch and his voice was nowhere to be found. She looked at him for a moment, and she looked so vulnerable he wanted to strangle himself. He was letting her do all of the work. He was letting her take all of the risks, and he was paralyzed.

“But the only other thing I could think to do was grabbing you by the front of your shirt and kissing that act right off your face, and I couldn’t do that either because you’re just so skittish, sometimes. I didn’t want to scare you off. And I’ve been going back and forth thinking you’re into me and thinking you’re not, and I was going to back off and let you figure it out, but then you started opening up and it looked like maybe you were interested in being friends, so…”

Her words came in waves, starting slow and soft and welling up in the middle to crash on the shore and flow quietly back where they came from.

“So I latched on to that. I figured that we should just get to know each other first. That maybe you just took a while to catch on, or warm up to me or something. And then I thought we were just playing around, cause it was fun sometimes. It was like a game. Like a chase, and I thought you’d let me catch you eventually, or you’d turn the tables and catch me, but…”

She stared down at her knees, frowning, shaking her head.

“But now it’s getting ridiculous!” she blurted, her voice stronger now but shakier, too. It startled him and made him breathe in sharp. “Cause every time I see you I feel like a useless schoolgirl with a crush. Like, butterflies and everything.” She gestured towards her belly as she spoke the words, as if she thought it wouldn’t be clear enough otherwise. “And hearing your voice makes me smile, and when you smile I just…”

When she trailed off with a strange, silent laugh, she wrapped her arms around herself, covering her stomach, holding herself together. Another wave of words had washed over the shore and swept over him. How he wished he could move his old bones. How he wished his joints hadn’t locked themselves into place like this. She glanced over at him quickly, nervously, then licked her lips and carried on.

“And my heart’s beating really fast right now,” she continued in a voice nearly as soft as a whisper, “and I can’t believe I’m saying all of this without stuttering. I’m really attracted to you. I’ve been trying to make it really obvious.”

She fancied him.

“And it’s not just, y’know, physical attraction. I _like_ you. I think you’re amazing. And I think we’re friends, now, but I think we could be more than that. I’d like to find out. I think we might… I… I’ve never liked someone this much.”

Her breath was shaky. Her hands were trembling. She actually…

“Maybe that’s why I couldn’t just make a move. It… It felt… God, and dancing just then… You saw how you were making me feel, didn’t you?” she asked, giving him another imploring look with her eyebrows knitted close together and her lower lip jutting out just the slightest bit in a subconscious pout. “I just wanted to get closer. Much closer than that.”

She wanted him. He still couldn’t move. This didn’t feel real at all. It felt as if he’d switched bodies with someone Belle French could possibly want. But… she was looking at him. Talking to him. Pouring her heart out, offering all of it to him, and trembling as she did so because she cared as much as he did. Didn’t she?

“And… you’re being really quiet right now. So if I misjudged _everything_ the past few months, then, I don’t know… You can tell me to buzz off. You don’t have to let me down easy.”

“Belle, I -”

Oh. It seemed his voice was back. But Belle was paying no heed.

“I’m a big girl and I can handle it!” she carried on in that louder voice of hers, still with the hint of a tremble. She slipped off the desk and wrapped her arms around herself again. _He_ wanted to do that. “I thought you were attracted to me at least, but I’ve been going over every moment we spent together, everything you said, and the last few weeks have been so confusing.”

The urge to hold her melted whatever it was that kept his joints frozen, and Gold slid off the desk, too, cringing when he landed on his bad ankle. She wasn’t looking at him.

“And when you kissed me on the cheek that night after the field trip, you were so cute and shy and I thought I was right and you really did like me, but then you got weird and you ran off, and I feel like I don’t know anything anymore. And if you don’t feel the same, that’s fine, but I really needed to get this off my chest at least, and I know I’m rambling, but it’s not as if you’re going to say anything, and - ”

He reached out to grab her by the shoulders and spun her to face him, because he couldn’t take it anymore. Before he could even see the surprise in her eyes, he leaned in to kiss her but then…

Then he panicked and changed his mind, lurching forward and back again like a drunken sailor on a ship in stormy seas. A soft gasp spilled over her lips and into the space between them. Fuck. So close. So fucking close, and now she was looking at him as if he was insane. Her eyes were almost impossibly wide.

“Were you about to kiss me?” she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper.

“Yes.”

Her arms slid and dropped limply to her sides.

“Why d’you stop?”

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to.”

Belle gave him a look of equal parts exasperation and pity that one might give a dog who’d been waiting in front of an open glass door for an hour. She sighed, or gasped, or laughed - it was difficult to tell - and then she took a step towards him and reached out slowly until her fingers felt soft against his cheeks and sent his heart racing even faster. She moved closer, closer until their noses bumped and slid against each other. He felt her breath against his lips, and then she waited.

She was giving him another chance.

This one, he took. All he had to do was tilt his head down just the slightest bit to fit their lips together, like so, and they kissed. Just like that. Easy. Her lips were even softer than her cheeks, and somehow, even though he’d kissed her, she’d been the one to kiss him; her lips had caught his and turned their first kiss into something a little more than he had dared to dream it could be. It was perfect. She was perfect and he was melting into her touch. He didn’t think his heart would still be racing when that final distance was crossed, but oh, he was so wrong. He was dead wrong, and her fingers left a trail of sparks on his skin as they slid down over his jaw and his neck to settle just above his shirt collar. When he touched her face, it was as soft as he imagined it would be, her cheeks warm and smooth underneath his chalk dry fingertips.

When she pulled back and he watched her beautiful eyes flutter open again, he could see it, now. All of it. Her lips apart, the blush on her cheeks, her pupils so wide they almost chased away the bright blue of her eyes completely. Had that been there all along? How had he not seen that? How could he possibly have rationalized all of that? Her smile was just a quick twitch at one corner of her mouth, and then she kissed him again. He felt her hands on his arms, then his shoulders, and suddenly she broke the kiss to push her head against his chest, her arms wrapped tight around his neck and her breath hot through the fabric of his shirt. The back of her head fit perfectly into his palm, and he could do nothing but stand there and hold her close as her relieved, muffled laughter made her body shake in his arms. She was clinging to him so tight it was almost unbearably hot, and yet he pulled her closer, locked his arms around her, hoped she’d never let go. He could have stood there with her body pressed to his for hours. _Hours._ He could lift her up and carry her home with him, she was so wee.

“You nearly gave me a heart attack, then,” she breathed. “My heart’s beating so fast, I swear.”

Still, he couldn’t talk. Not a word. There was nothing he could say that wasn’t an apology or a particular set of words that were too frail to speak just yet.

“You alright?” she asked, twisting her head up to smile at him.

“Perfect,” he managed, pulling her closer still. Absolutely perfect. Dazed. In disbelief. But perfect.

Belle sighed, moving her hands from his shoulders down his arms to catch his hands. “So you are interested.”

“Yes!” he cried, squeezing her hands. With the blockage gone and the feeling of her lips on his now a reality and not some irresponsibly unrealistic daydream, his words fell from his desperate mouth in a hurry. “I am! Of course I am. How could I not? I am. I really am, Belle, I assure you.”

“Relax,” she cooed, laughter in her voice bubbling up again. “I’m just making sure. I couldn’t really tell anymore. Why didn’t you make a move?”

He gave her an apologetic look. “I… I couldn’t be sure,” he said softly, letting her hands slip from his so he could lean back against the desk.

She crinkled her nose and cocked her head to the side. “Really? I thought I was obvious, bordering on obnoxious.”

“Surely you understand I couldn’t just assume you felt that way about me?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head with a confused frown. “I really don’t understand.”

He let go of her hands and motioned to his face and his busted ankle. “Belle, I’m,” he started, pausing to sigh, “old and broken.”

“Gold!” she cried. “I’m attracted to you! Do you believe me, or do you want the citations on your desk in MLA format by tomorrow morning?”

“APA.”

It was a joke, but she narrowed her eyes at him and reached for her purse, abandoned on the floor next to his desk. She took out her cellphone, pushed and swiped at the screen and muttered, “Just gonna pick something at random, here.”

She hummed, kept swiping for a bit as he looked on in confusion, then smirked and moved to stand next to him, holding up her cellphone in front of them so he could see.

“Here. Remember my friend Ruby?” she asked. Gold nodded. “I’ve been texting her about you. I’ve got loads of these, but this one’s particularly good, I think.”

_‘I swear to God if he gives me that look anywhere near my car with the trunk open I’m gonna push him in and drive off’_

Gold raised his eyebrows and huffed in disbelief. “Me?”

“I was just about ready to kidnap you, yes.”

“What look?”

“Oh, no no no,” she laughed. “I’m not telling. You might weaponize it. Do you believe me now?”

“I believe you, I do. I just… It’s difficult to really understand -”

She cut him off with a frustrated groan and said, “Another one, then. Alright.”

She swiped at the screen again, moving further up, and Gold wondered whether the recipient of these texts was the person she had been talking to on the phone the day before when he so rudely eavesdropped.

“Here,” she said, pointing at the screen.

_‘Can’t talk right now but he had his sleeves rolled up today please kill me’_

He couldn’t help but laugh, now, and when he looked at her she was blushing just a little bit, her lips pursed because she was trying not to smile. “That’s a bit dramatic,” he teased, making a mental note to roll up his sleeves more often.

“Well, you were driving me insane, sir,” she mock-scolded him, locking her phone and then poking him in the chest with a serious look on her face that ended up completely contradicted by the playful twinkle in her eyes. “I can keep scrolling up, you know. I can even call her up and ask her to tell you how annoying I’ve been lately. I couldn’t stop talking about you.”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Saying those words made his heart beat faster for a moment. She smiled, and for a second there, Gold thought he might have seen a little quiver in her bottom lip, and it made him want to kiss her again. But that was a little too forward for him still. Baby steps.

“So,” she said, grinning. “D’you want to go on a date, maybe? Not a baking class, though.”

Baking class? What? Gold frowned and waited for an explanation, but suddenly, with the image of her gorgeous legs dangling from his desk, he remembered.

“Oh, you… Was that a hint?”

“I was almost literally asking you out!”

“ _Oh._ ”

Belle groaned, swung herself around and pushed her head into his chest, her hands clutching at his jacket and pulling him closer, and he gave her hips a squeeze he hoped she would read as an apology. When she looked up, she had a few tears of laughter or relief in her eyes, and God, she was beautiful. She was unreal, and this couldn’t possibly be happening. Was he even awake?

“You’re gonna have a lot of those _oh_ moments the next few days,” she teased.

“Yeah, I’m… I’m beginning to get the picture.”

He loved it when she laughed in his embrace because it made her body shake and it was always strangely infectious, but he let her go when she pulled away, even though he would have loved to hold her for a few more seconds, or hours.

“I’m done with hints, now,” she said, nodding decisively. “I’m asking you out. Would you like to go out some time? On an actual date with romantic implications? With me?”

He had to laugh at how specific she was being, but he couldn’t blame her, exactly. Belle smiled and shrugged, adding, “Just making sure there’s no room for interpretation.”

“I would like that very much,” he said. “Dinner, perhaps? I can make reservations somewhere.”

She lowered her voice, smirked and muttered, “Not the bike shed?”

How was she still making him squirm when she’d made herself so vulnerable for him? He laughed nervously and looked down at his feet, hoping his hair would hide his blush, because if she was done with hints, he needed to be done with this cowardly nonsense. At least, he had to appear as if he was. “That’s more of a third date sort of thing, don’t you think?” he joked.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she said with a bright grin. “Dinner sounds good.”

“Alright.”

He couldn’t stop smiling. That radiating heat somewhere just below his ribcage whenever they made eye contact for a little longer than was strictly normal was still there, and it was still intense, but it wasn’t frightening anymore now that he knew she felt it too. There was something in her eyes he couldn’t make much sense of, though, as they moved over every bit of his face as if she were mapping it.

“You think I’m kidding about the bike shed, don’t you?” she said softy, stepping closer again. She swallowed up his dumb _uh_ with her pretty lips, pushed him back against the desk and dug her fingers in his hair, and oh. That was what that look was. She kissed him in exactly the same way she spoke to him. Effortlessly, generously, with a promise of more with every touch. Her lips were wet, and now his were too. If their kisses were like this now, then what would their kisses be like if they grew closer? More comfortable with each other’s touch? More confident? It was dizzying. Thoughts to get drunk on. Or maybe Daniels had spiked the punch.

“I don’t want to stop kissing you,” she murmured against his lips, “but I have to help clean up.”

“Yeah?”

She reached up and put her soft lips to his once more.

“Yeah. And I think you need some time to regroup, maybe,” she said. There was kindness in her voice as well as a hint of that earlier teasing tone of hers. He wasn’t going to contradict her. He wanted to keep kissing her, of course, but his head was reeling and his ankle was burning, and he was exhausted now.

“We’ll figure out the practical stuff later,” she decided.

She took his hand and held it for those few steps from his desk out into the hallway, where he found a little bit of courage and tugged her closer so he could kiss her good night. He felt her lips smile against his.

“If you pretend this didn’t happen next time we meet,” she warned him, “I will destroy you.”

“I won’t,” he said solemnly. “I couldn’t.”

She smirked, nodded, then headed down the hallway towards the bright lights of the gym beyond its wide open doors. Gold walked backwards to the exit, not quite ready to see her disappear. She turned around to wave one more time, and that was when his back hit the door with a loud bang. Fuck. He heard her giggle and call out, “Are you okay?”

“Fine!”

“Alright!”

Idiot. _Idiot with a date, though,_ Gold thought to himself as the cool spring air hit his burning face. Yeah. An idiot who had just spent fifteen minutes kissing the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his entire life. He let himself smile all the way home because there was no-one to intimidate, and he doubted he would care even if there was. He drove slow and took the long way past the woods again just to stretch out that feeling, just to keep it there in the car with him where it still felt strong, just in case his big empty house was where his fears had fled to. Just in case they were waiting there for him in the shadows, ready to hit him over the head with a candlestick.

But they were nowhere to be found. Not even in the cold of his bedroom, not even in his bed where he had spent countless sleepless nights convincing himself he was wrong for wanting her. Tonight would be sleepless, too, but for different reasons altogether. With his mind full of images of her smile and the ghost of her lips on his, sleep wasn’t in the cards for him tonight. He would give it fifteen minutes of staring up at the ceiling before he’d head back downstairs to do something productive, but for now, there he lay. He was staring up and probably still smiling when he caught the telltale flashing of his silenced phone from the corner of his eye. He grabbed it, nearly dropped it, unlocked it and read a message.

_‘Might change your ringtone to Heaven now ;)’_

Gold snorted. Would she have been in bed, too? Was she sitting on her couch watching TV and eating apples? Was she out with her friends and thinking of him? With fingers he knew would never be as fast as hers, he wrote back:

_‘Might never call you again in that case.’_

He was starting to realize why people used smileys. He was nervous about her reply, now. He hoped she knew he was kidding.

_‘You’ve never called me before :P night night sunshine’_

Oh good. He typed _‘Good night.’_ but backspaced through it, because it read cold. Would she think he was genuinely bothered by her jokes? Or the nickname? God, he hated texting. Well, he loved it now, but he hated it. So after a minute of racking his brain for a decent compromise, Gold eventually went with:

_‘Good night, darling’_

Just like that. No full stop. Sending that text was like ripping out his stomach, so he all but slammed his phone down on the night stand, clicked off his bedside lamp and clenched his eyes shut, hoping he’d forget about it soon. But unfortunately, in the darkness, the bright flashing light of his phone’s huge screen was even more noticeable, even with his eyes closed. With his heart beating way too fast, he unlocked it and read her message.

Did it even count as a message? It was just… lips. Just lips. A little icon. A kiss? He’d been kissed more tonight than in the past few years, and she wasn’t even done yet. He was a man in his fifties. He was a man in his fucking fifties and here he was, phone in hand, smiling into his pillow because a girl had texted him a kiss. Ridiculous. He would simply have to raise his voice, double the assigned homework and give out a couple of detention slips for minor infractions next week to compensate.

Perhaps not to Daniels, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt that two Spandau Ballet songs referenced in a single fic, though multi-chaptered, would be one too many. When I asked around for songs that were True, but _not_ True, Foxmurphy unwittingly provided the soundtrack for that scene by suggesting Heaven. So, y'know, if you groaned or cringed, direct your groaning or cringing there. If your eyes rolled out of their sockets, ask her to retrieve them for you from under the couch.
> 
> (By which I mean to say: Thanks, Foxmurphy. :) )


	8. Slow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a date. There are nerves. There's texting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for being so lovely and kind.

_‘Guess who’s going on a date tonight?’_

He didn’t usually text his son on a Saturday for fear of ruining his weekend by accidentally saying something unpleasant as he had often done in the past, but he knew he really ought to let him know that once again; he had been wrong, and Neal had been right. Honestly, though, he’d hoped that in the time it took him to find his phone, write that message, send it and go back up to his bedroom, he would somehow have come to a decision regarding cufflinks. Yes or no? Would she even notice? Would it matter if she did? Was he too proud to go without them? Unfortunately, back in front of his dresser, Gold still didn’t know what to do about the bloody cufflinks.

When his phone buzzed and jittered around on the dresser, the screen flashing Neal’s name, he was preoccupied with staring at his extensive tie collection. But it kept flashing and buzzing and it took him entirely too long to realize that it wasn’t a text back; Neal was calling him. He scrambled to pick up.

“Are you kidding me?” cried Neal, apparently not in the mood for pleasantries. “Tell me you’re serious!”

“Hello, son,” he said, smiling to himself as he sat down on the edge of his bed.

“With Belle? Did you ask her out?”

Gold snorted. “Of course, with Belle.”

“So you asked her out?”

He had rather hoped Neal would’ve let that one slide. Ah well. He shrugged, cleared his throat with a cough and muttered, “Not exactly, no.”

“She asked you?”

“She asked me, yes,” he admitted.

Neal laughed, and whatever shame at his own cowardice Gold had felt disappeared when he heard how genuinely happy he sounded. “I told you so! She got tired of you acting like a wimp, huh?”

He smirked, some part of him wanting to argue that particular term, some other part of him thinking it was quite apt. Wimp. “I suppose so.”

“So are you gonna cook for her? Make your paella. Your paella’s the best.”

“Oh, God, no. No, I made reservations at a restaurant. I don’t want to cock up and give her food poisoning.”

“Really, dad? Are you that nervous?” he teased.

Gold laughed a silent belly laugh and wished his son was there with him. He would know what to do about the cufflinks. He would know which tie to choose. He would know, because he would tell him that it didn’t matter. That she’d been waiting for him to come around for months, now, and that a suboptimal choice of tie wouldn’t make her go off him just like that. (Unless he picked the orange one. The orange one, Gold had been told by his son last Christmas, was “revolting” and “should be criminalized.”)

“Yes. I’m very nervous,” he said, letting himself speak the truth for once. It seemed Neal hadn’t expected him to; he was silent on the other end. He could even hear an apartment door slamming shut somewhere in his building.

“Really?” he asked, after a few more seconds of silence.

“Really.”

“Well… Don’t be. Or, at least, don’t think it’s a bad thing. Nerves make you look human. Human is good. I know you don’t think that, but it’s true. She’ll be sympathetic.”

Gold smiled and pushed himself up from the bed to take another look at his collection of ties, neatly stashed away in his dresser. All colors and patterns that had caught his eye over the years - most of them only worn once or twice, some never at all.

“You think so?”

“Yeah! Seriously, it’s a thing. Haven’t you ever felt sorry for a kid when they were shaking really badly during a presentation or something?”

That made sense. He could even remember standing in front of the classroom as a little boy, having to recite a poem, stumbling over his words and being comforted by the kind smile on his teacher’s face. He, on the other hand, tried not to let those things sway him. (Mostly because after that little fuck-up, he had often done it on purpose just to get out of trouble. Didn’t memorize that poem? No; just nerves. Couldn’t answer the questions because he didn’t do the assigned reading? Ah, no; bloody nerves again. He didn’t trust some of these kids not to try the same trick.)

“I see what you mean, but why would I want her to feel sorry for me?” he asked, smirking to himself as he picked out a dark blue tie with a subtle pattern.

“I don’t know. Might get a kiss out of it.”

“Oh, done that.”

“Dad! Jesus Christ!”

Gold threw his head back and laughed. Why did he even bring it up if it would embarrass him? Silly boy. Always went in headfirst.

“Right, okay, I’m gonna hang up before you make me go get the bleach again.”

“Alright, lad.”

“And don’t worry. You’ll be fine. But hey, do you have a picture of her you can send me? I’m curious.”

Gold shook his head and was about to tell him no, of course not, when he realized that he did in fact have a picture of her. Of them, actually. “I do, yes.”

“Text it to me after you hang up. Bye, dad!”

He gave him no chance to argue and hung up, and it took Gold ten more minutes to figure out how to actually do what he’d asked him to. It worked, eventually, and it took Neal about twenty seconds to text him back.

_‘!!!!!!!’_

He snorted and decided that that was indeed the most appropriate _and_ likely reaction to first laying eyes upon Belle French. He texted back _‘Indeed.’_ and was just about to carry on getting his clothes in order when a quick succession of texts made his phone buzz loudly on the dresser.

_‘wait was that taken at the rabbit hole?’_

Oh, was he not supposed to go there, then?

_‘u go to the rabbit hole now?’_

Gold smirked and decided that he would wear the cufflinks.

_[‘dad what the hell’](http://kamdensl.tumblr.com/post/112086717186/remedial-french-chapter-8-but-hey-do-you-have-a)_

You can never go wrong with cufflinks.

…

_‘Hi! What do I wear?’_  
‘Anything’s fine.’  
 _‘Yeah but are we talking fancy or REALLY fancy’_  
‘Do you really think those are the only conceivable options?’  
 _‘As if you’d risk slumming it on a first date :P and you mentioned reservations, so’_  
‘That’s right. I did, didn’t I? Any dress will do.’  
 _‘So something like the one I wore last Friday or that green one the week before?’_  
‘Both are lovely. You look great in both. Both are appropriate.’  
 _‘:) thanks, that helps’_  
‘While we’re chatting, I feel compelled to warn you that I haven’t been on a date in years.’  
 _‘It’s like riding a bike, don’t worry’_  
‘I might need the training wheels put back on, to be honest.’  
 _‘Pretty sure there’s a suggestive joke to be made here :P’_  
‘I’m beginning to think I need to find us a chaperone.’  
 _‘;) see you tonight’_

…

He waited for her outside of her apartment building, leaning against his car, ready to open the door for her and help her in. He was nervous, of course, but his son’s words had left an impression and made him feel a little bit better about that fact. Belle was exactly the sort to take pity on a poor, nervous wretch who wasn’t even close to ready for what he’d gotten himself into. She would see that he was serious about doing this right, and she would forgive him if he fumbled and spilled a few forkfuls of food into his lap. Would she not?

When she came out of the building and gave him a little wave, she stole the air right out of his lungs, the moisture and the words out of his mouth, and the ground from under his feet. Which may have been a slight exaggeration, but _fuck_ , she was beautiful. Her lips were as red as the little icon she’d texted him that one time. Her hair was up in some sort of elegantly constructed artwork, and she was wearing a blue dress that he couldn’t help but notice matched his tie. Was that a sign that luck was on his side? Not that he believed in luck.

The gate creaked open and shut. “Hey!” she chirped, bouncing up to him and craning her neck so she could kiss his cheek. He wasn’t sure where to put his hands - if anywhere at all - so he just lightly held her elbows for a moment as he kissed her cheek in return.

“You look stunning,” he managed.

Her grin was broad, her head inclined in a miniature curtsey of sorts, and she replied, “And you look very handsome.”

See? Cufflinks.

He opened the door for her and noted with some satisfaction that she didn’t even roll her eyes, and he had almost started to feel a little more confident about this evening when suddenly he saw it: The red roses he got her, forgotten on the passenger seat. _Idiot._ He laughed nervously and swiped them away before she could accidentally sit on them.

“I… I forgot,” he said, offering her the little bundle of roses. In the shop earlier, he didn’t know what else to pick. All he could think about was her perfume, and how that meant she couldn’t possibly dislike roses, so that was what he went with. Judging from the smile on her face, it seemed that that had been pretty sound reasoning.

“You got me flowers?” she asked, her voice suddenly an octave higher than usual. It would have made him laugh if he hadn’t been so terribly nervous. “I knew it,” she giggled, taking the roses from him and cradling them as if they were precious.

“Knew what?”

“Well, I already knew that there was a nice man underneath all that attitude, but now you’ve confirmed my other suspicion,” she said, pausing to give him another kiss, closer to the corner of his mouth this time. “You’re a romantic, too.”

Gold felt his lips twitch up into a smile he knew probably looked rather vacant and dumb, so he swallowed, nodded, and waited for her to get in so he could close the door. He took his time to get to the driver’s side so that by the time he was in the car with her, he had swallowed that useless lump in his throat. Perhaps that was the worst of it. Perhaps he would calm down now and feel a little less incompetent now that they’d gone through the awkward bit.

When he settled into his seat and looked over to make sure she’d buckled up, he saw her staring at the shop’s card attached to the bouquet with a strange frown on her face. She blinked, slowly began to smile, then looked right back at him. “Did you get these at Game of Thorns?”

“I did,” he replied. It was either that, or the gas station.

She laughed, and with the warm light of the setting sun hitting her eyes and turning them strangely golden for a moment, he was absolutely entranced. So entranced, in fact, that Gold forgot to ask why that was funny at all, but it turned out he didn’t need to. Belle stopped laughing long enough to turn to him, smirk and tell him, “You, uh… You saved me the trouble of introducing you to my dad, then.”

“Wait, what?” he blurted, not exactly comforted by her second burst of laughter, louder than the first. “Your father works at Game of Thorns?”

“Mhm! He owns the shop! This is so funny!”

He supposed it was, but as he went over their brief encounter earlier that day, Gold found that he absolutely couldn’t laugh, and Belle noticed. She quieted, put her hand on his knee, gave him a knowing lopsided smirk and lowered her voice. “You sassed him, didn’t you?”

Gold swallowed. (“Going on a date, are we?” “You’re not my type.”)

“Might have. A little.”

It would have been fine if he hadn’t muttered that little wise-arse remark under his breath as if he didn’t really care if he heard it or not. It might have been considered a clever joke if he’d just said it in a cheerful, cordial tone. But no. Not him. Ruffled the father’s feathers before he’d even realized he’d met him - that was him all over.

But Belle just smiled at him, squeezed his knee and told him, “Don’t worry. He’s terrible with faces. By the time I convince you to meet him for real, he’ll have forgotten all about it.”

There was so much there in that statement, but her hand on his knee was keeping him from really parsing it. The touch was just so warm, and so nice - and her smile was, too - and it was such a cliché, but he realized then that he must have been the luckiest man in the world. Perhaps it was time to start believing in luck then, and even though he suspected he could sit there and watch her smile at him for a century or two more, it was time to get going. In the car, they chatted about her father’s business and the fact that he should have figured the two Australians in this small town were related, and it wasn’t uncomfortable exactly, but Gold still wasn’t much at ease, despite sweet Belle’s best efforts to tell him with her smiles and her light touches that it was alright. She still didn’t roll her eyes when he insisted on opening the car door for her, and neither did she make a comment when he held the door to the restaurant. She just smiled each time and thanked him politely, and Gold was ever so grateful she would let him have that, at least.

Because this he could do. There were clear rules to this game. Conversation. Wine. Candlelight dinner. Take her coat, pull out her chair for her, pick up the check and drop her off at the end of the night and perhaps, _perhaps_ , a good night kiss.

Except… It had been a few years since he’d actually set foot in that restaurant, and Gold wondered with a sudden chill if it had been this quiet and solemn then, too. Had he forgotten, or had it changed? As they sat there in the unexpected silence and stared at each other with shy smiles, Gold took the opportunity to try and quietly come to terms with the unbelievable truth that she was there with him. _For_ him. The wine arrived, which was reassuring and also helpful, but it went strangely downhill from there.

Because Gold had foolishly thought that he would be more relaxed if he didn’t have to worry about burning dinner to a crisp or stumbling upon a food allergy Belle didn’t know she had, and that theory was turning out to be naive beyond words. His mind was still whirring like mad, going over each and every terrible thing that could possibly happen this evening, with the only difference being the rather terrifying fact that there were far more people involved in this situation compared to a simple dinner date in his home, and therefore there were far more opportunities for disaster. A building full of people whose potential for endless cock-ups could help make this night a nightmare, and he could control exactly none of them. The cook could be awful, the waiting staff rude or clumsy, their fellow diners unforgivably annoying, and he had noticed a significant dent in the lamp post just outside, which meant that a car crashing into the side of the building wasn’t that irrational a fear. God, even that food allergy thing wasn’t out of the question, here. Should have invited her over to his house. Should have made her his paella. It _was_ good, and no-one had ever driven their car into his mailbox.

Yet she was as charming as ever, smiling and joking and trying to get him to loosen up, but the poor girl was facing an impossible task. And after a while, he noticed with his heart plummeting straight down into his stomach that she looked smaller in this place; her shoulders hunched, her head held a little lower, her voice softer. Of course. Of course; she’d probably expected something fun. Something casual, at least, and he had given her stilted conversation in a restaurant with the ambiance and color scheme of a dated funeral parlor, and a meal so insubstantial she would definitely have to supplement it with actual food, later. Without him - the pretentious, posturing coward.

“Too stuffy, isn’t it?” he muttered, forcing herself to meet her gaze.

She smiled and shrugged. “It’s a new experience for me, that’s all. It’s nice!”

“I told you it’s been ages. I’m so sorry.”

She reached over and put her hand over his. He’d been needlessly moving his fork about on the table. The touch froze him at first, but then it melted him completely. He relaxed his shoulders, sighed, turned his hand over and let her wrap her smaller fingers around his. When he looked up, she was still smiling.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I wanted to spend time with you, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. I’m perfectly happy just being here with you.”

That thing she did when she tried not to smile and failed miserably was one of his favorite things. It looked as if she wasn’t quite sure if she ought to say whatever it was she was about to. It made his heart beat a little faster in his chest. “And, uh… I’ll tell you a secret,” she murmured, scooting a little closer to the edge of her chair and giving his hand a gentle squeeze. Her face was slowly getting red. “You don’t have to woo me, here, Gold. You’ve already got me hook, line, and sinker.”

He opened his mouth for a reply that never came. Belle grinned shyly and added, “You pulled weeks ago, sunshine. I’m just waiting for you to catch up.”

Oh, she was magnificent, and he was terrified. She probably thought that that admission would make him _less_ nervous. If he could reach back through time and switch the him who was currently tongue-tied with the him at The Rabbit Hole who was convinced she didn’t want him like that, he could stay calm. Well, calmer. Calm enough to speak, in any case, because he would find a way to explain Belle’s meaningful words and looks away until this was no longer a date, and therefore no longer a minefield.

But all he could think about was that look in her eyes when they danced. Her chest heaving, the red on her cheeks, and all that talk about being intense, and the fucking _milk_ , for fuck’s sake, and her jeans on his bedroom floor, and the fact that he was going to fuck everything up because he hadn’t had sex in years, and it was important to her; he knew that much. If one of her idiotic ex-boyfriends whom he assumed was her age - or perhaps even younger - had had to tap out, what chance did he stand?

With his stomach in knots, Gold was too nervous to eat, but he didn’t want that to be obvious, so this date was turning out to be a very interesting sort of torture indeed. The meal was expensive enough that it should have been delicious, but he wouldn’t and couldn’t possibly have known. He was dutifully chewing cardboard. She reached over and stole a few forkfuls every once in a while, which was a fucking blessing, and maybe years from now when he’d married her he could tell that stupid fucking story about the time she was unwittingly helping him out by finishing his dinner when he was too flustered to. At the wedding reception, maybe, where she’d reveal that there was nothing unwitting about it; she knew she’d spooked him and she was just trying to move things along. And then they’d dance to Heaven, because she’d insist and he could deny her nothing, and they’d get pissed at the open bar and ditch the reception to -

“You’ve gone awfully quiet,” she said. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Lying comes easy to you, doesn’t it?” she teased, smirking from behind her glass of wine and quirking an eyebrow suggestively. “I can already tell you’re gonna keep me on my toes.”

Oh, good God. Exactly what kind of demonic creature was he dating, here? He ought to tell her the truth and give her a taste of her own medicine. _I was just planning our wedding, dear._ She’d bolt in those heels of hers and break some sort of speed record. That crippling fear of disappointing her hadn’t gone away at all. Perhaps he could disguise it as a certain affinity for the old-fashioned. The traditional. But no, it was too late for any of that. Now his face was heating up, and this wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all. He was supposed to sweep her off her feet and drop her back home with a proper good night kiss so that he could make his retreat with his head held high until he turned the corner and dug his fingers in his hair and wondered how the _fuck_ he was daydreaming about marrying her but couldn’t imagine anything in between.

Well, no, that wasn’t entirely accurate; he could imagine it alright, but it never took on more than the form of an almost comically unrealistic dream, and it was always followed by small pangs of guilt and a touch of sadness. He could imagine pulling her into his lap and letting her hair down. He could imagine undressing her and making her lose all of her words. He just couldn’t imagine it like he could imagine driving home alone later tonight and cursing himself for his cowardice. With that voice inside of his head a veritable waterfall of negativity, it was no wonder he felt so far away from her. She was reaching for him, and he had crawled right into the back of his skull to cower. He was barely thinking of her, wasn't he? He was thinking of himself, and his fears, and all of his excuses.

As such, it took him far too long to realize that he was probably supposed to laugh at her teasing, with the result that when he did, it sounded forced. That was when her charming smirk melted down to a small smile, then to a soft, “Oh,” with rounded lips and wider eyes. She looked a little embarrassed, which was both saddening and comforting, because he loved this part of her - he really did - but God, there was just so much _of_ it, and he felt small and old and unworthy by comparison. He didn’t want her to shine any less bright. His eyes just needed to adjust to the light, that was all. And he could do that. He just needed some time.

“Scratch that catching up thing,” she laughed nervously. “Maybe I need to slow down.”

“No no no, Belle, you’re fine. Don’t… I’m just warming up,” he explained. “In general. Not to you. I-I mean, I _have_ warmed up to you. Months ago. A-And quite a lot. I just mean…”

She smiled and nodded to tell him that it was alright to stop stammering; she’d gotten the point. It was very kind of her. “You need to ease yourself into it,” she said, still nodding.

Gold decided that that was as good a way of putting it as any. “Yes, that -”

“Sounds wrong doesn’t it?” she cut in, grinning. “I mean, it sounds right to me, but, you know.”

When he laughed that time, it wasn’t forced. It wasn’t fear. His nervous heart recognized hers, and he could feel the tension melt from his shoulders yet again.

“I’m at it again,” she muttered with an embarrassed grin. “Sorry. I guess I’m overexcited. I don’t know what I’m saying. Ignore all of it.”

“No, no. I love it. Don’t change,” he said, reaching over to catch her hand the way she had caught his before. That was strangely easy, considering how paralyzed he had been not two minutes before. Belle looked at where their fingers touched for a moment and smiled cautiously, as if she was scared she’d scare him off if she smiled just a little bit wider.

“So I can keep being a scandalous flirt?” she asked, hope and laughter in her voice.

“I would be disappointed if you didn’t.”

When she smiled, he smiled too, and suddenly he realized what the problem was. It was far too quiet in here, and the colors were far too dim. They didn’t belong there. This place was making them speak in hushed voices and making them choose weaker words. What were they even doing here?

“Shall we get coffee at the diner?” he suggested.

“That sounds perfect.”

And it was. The music there was a little louder, the light a little brighter, and it was only then that he noticed that it had been bloody chilly in that restaurant. It was warm in here - almost too warm, but pleasantly so. This time, when she settled next to him in the booth like she had at The Rabbit Hole, it only seemed natural. They could still talk that way if they twisted to face each other, they could bump their knees together “by accident”, and he could reach over to wipe the milk foam from her nose without worrying about knocking something over.

“Are you less nervous, now?” she asked, cocking her head to the side just a little bit.

“Was it very obvious?” He knew fully well that it was.

Belle nodded and gave him her kindest smile. “It makes sense, though. I could sit here and not say a word and I’d still be coming on too strong.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” he said, furrowing his brow.

“It’s just that I can imagine all of the hints you didn’t get at the time are smacking you in the face all at once now, and well… there were loads, so…”

“Actually, I haven’t been thinking about that much.”

“Oh, really?” she sang, her eyes wide. “Now might be a good time to start, then! We can process them together! I can make sure you get them all!”

“God,” he laughed, leaning back in the corner of the booth so he could face her better. “Alright. Let’s get it over with.”

She didn’t even have to take a moment to collect her thoughts. Instead, she turned a bit more towards him, took a deep breath and began with, “So, I was already interested in you when we met in the library. You probably thought I was just some crazy person.”

“Might have,” he admitted with a nod. “A very beautiful crazy person, however.”

“Thank you,” she said, crinkling her nose and then adding, “… I think. Anyway, you know I kept sitting in your chair on purpose, right?”

“Yes, of course. To save my seat,” said Gold.

“Wrong!” she laughed. “I knew no-one was going to sit there. I was trying to get a rise out of you. Playground tactics.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Really?” That was wonderful. That was beautiful, and he wished he’d noticed.

“Mhm. I was surprised you believed me when I told you I was just saving it, actually. I think that’s when I started to think you at least… well…”

She trailed off and looked a little dreamy, looking down into her cup of coffee nibbling her lip with a cute, quick little shrug.

“Fancied you,” he offered. The words really did come easier in here. How odd. What a relief.

“Yeah!” she replied, grinning bright. “And then there was that time I flat out told you I would have had a crush on you in high school if I’d had you for a teacher.”

“Ah, but I figured that one out eventually!” he said, allowing himself to look a little smug.

“Yes yes, well done,” she teased. “But what about all those times I tried to get you to ask me out?”

Gold blinked. “You mean the baking class? I was distracted!”

“No no no,” she laughed. “ _That_ time I was almost literally asking you out. I mean every time I dawdled and asked you if you had any plans for the weekend, and all those times I told you how bored I got after work. Oh, and every bloody time I asked you if you knew a good place to get coffee.”

Gold liked that stern and yet playful tone of hers. It made him want to draw her out and rile her up, which might not have been the best idea considering the fact he obviously couldn’t deal with her riled up just yet, but still, it was too tempting. He knew that if he just pushed a button or two, she would do that thing where she tried very hard not to smile, and he couldn’t get enough of that. No, he couldn’t resist.

“You should have been more explicit, then,” he muttered with a shrug.

Her mouth dropped open and he couldn’t help but chuckle at her look of complete and utter dismay. “I can’t believe you!” she gasped. “Here I am, trying to contain myself, and you’re just -“

Ah, there it was. She’d caught on that he was just teasing her, and she was doing that thing he liked so much, now, crossing her arms over her chest, shaking her head and biting her lip to try and stop from smiling, but to no avail.

He wanted to kiss her so badly.

“I was going to let you off the hook tonight, you know, but screw that. You owe me, Gold.”

“I’m inclined to agree, but could you specify what for? I like to keep track of my debts.”

“For letting me spill my heart like we were on some cheesy high school TV show! And I think you should let me ask you anything to make up for that.”

She was trying to pout, and though it didn’t quite have the intended effect, it did soften him a little. She was utterly adorable, and in this strange new mood they were nursing together (was it really just the change of venue?) he was curiously unafraid to play whatever game she was suggesting they play, so he feigned a bored sigh and said, “Three questions.”

She snorted and shook her head sternly. “Five.”

“Four.”

“Five.”

He narrowed his eyes and smirked. “Alright! But I’m keeping count.”

She didn’t even miss a beat. “What were you thinking?” she asked, her face all screwed up in incomprehension, her head cocked to the side again.

Gold frowned, confused. True; he’d been an idiot, but he certainly didn’t see that sudden swing into the accusatory coming. It took her a few seconds for her eyebrows to shoot up in sudden realization, and she cried, “Oh my God, no, no, sorry! I mean when we talked. When we spent time together. I’m just wondering what was going through your mind, that’s all!”

“Oh, thank God,” he sighed dramatically, puffing up his cheeks and blowing out air to make her laugh. He was quite pleased with himself when he noticed it had worked.

But what to say? What to give her in return for what she had given him? Gold took a moment to breathe in the air between them and taste the atmosphere on his tongue. They had been drinking their coffee slowly, taking small sips and waiting a very long time in between. He felt safe, he realized then. Safe and warm sitting right next to her with his knee still bumping into hers every so often. Safe enough to talk.

“I was thinking how strange it was that you wanted to spend time with me,” he said, looking away from her distracting eyes for a moment. “And that I should get a hold of myself, because it’s obnoxious to pine over someone who just wants to be friends.”

“That’s cute, and also a little dumb,” she giggled.

“More cute than dumb?”

She made a humming noise and pretended to think it over, making him smirk and roll his eyes fondly. “Yes. Only just.”

“I can live with that.”

“Next question. When did you start to think I might be interested?”

He chuckled silently. “Actually… My son. Neal. He had something to do with that. You came up in conversation - God, when was it? After you stayed over, I think. You came up in conversation, and he picked up on the fact that I was… well, besotted might be the most accurate term, here. He picked up on that right away, and he got me to talk about you. About us. And he told me I needed to stop assuming it was one-sided.”

He picked up his coffee cup to give his hands something to do while she just sat there and smiled at him for a moment. “Remind me to thank him when I meet him,” she said.

_When._

Was this really… Were they really such a sure thing? What was he so nervous about, then? If she liked him enough to suffer through half of a terrible date, if she told him that he wasn’t trying to convince her of anything, if she wanted to meet his son and drink coffee with him after ten o’clock at night, how could he have been so fixated on the idea of losing her?

He swallowed all of those questions down. “Three more,” he mumbled into his coffee cup. It had gone cold. He couldn’t care less. It was raining now, too. A light tapping on the window next to the booth they were sitting in made him glance over his shoulder to see blurred streetlights and watery neon signs beyond the glass.

“Did you keep that piece of paper with my number on it for a reason?”

Her voice drew his eyes back to her face, which was infinitely more interesting to stare at, anyway. Gold smiled. Did she really care that much about the bookmark slip-up? “Might have,” he admitted with a shrug.

“And what reason was that?”

He had to laugh. Why was she asking him that? She knew, didn’t she? Did she not know fully well that he’d been smitten with her for the longest time? And yet she was staring at him intently, her smile somehow serious. Perhaps it was important for her to hear it. To hear him say the words.

“Exactly the reason you think.”

Her smile grew wider, but that was still not the look of a woman whose question had been satisfactorily answered. And he owed her, after all, so:

“I’m more of a sentimental fool than I care to let on,” he said softly, as if he thought someone might overhear, even though they were all alone in the diner. “So I assign emotional meaning and value to objects, and once I do, I’m nigh on impossible to part with them.”

She’d been listening closely, her smile growing wider and wider. “So what you’re saying is you kept it because you liked me?”

She saw right through his armor of words. His face was going to hurt from all that smiling tonight. He grinned, shrugged and looked down into his nearly empty cup of coffee, making sure his hair fell in front of his face so he could say, “Yes. I kept it because it was yours, and I liked you.”

Somehow they’d gotten close enough on the bench so that even with her hand on her own knee, she could just stretch her index finger and poke his to make him look up again. “And when did that start? When did you start feeling something more for me?”

Ah. That was right. He still owed her the answers to two more questions. This one was particularly difficult, he thought, because there had been so many other feelings involved back then. His nerves, his fear, his pride, his self-loathing. It was muddled and difficult to tell exactly when he realized that he was falling for her. He wasn’t sure how he was ever going to be able to answer that question properly. “I do know you made me nervous from day one,” he said, nodding to himself. “Because you’re beautiful and nosy, and I couldn’t figure out why you kept trying to talk to me.”

Her hand was on his knee, now. Just resting there, with no real purpose or intent, other than perhaps comfort. Perhaps she knew he couldn’t possibly answer that question in that moment. “And you recognized me right away, didn’t you? From the library, I mean. When you walked in that day and I was sitting in your chair.”

He looked up and gave her a half smile. “I did.”

There. Five questions answered, one of which might have to be revisited once he’d had some time to process things. Judging from the smile on her face, he suspected that had pleased her. With the way she was inching nearer, looking over her shoulder quickly just once to see if anyone was watching, and then moving just a little bit nearer still, that suspicion only became stronger. By the time her soft lips met his own in a gentle kiss and both of her hands had caught one of his and pulled it into her lap in what must have been the sweetest gesture in the history of humanity, he knew for sure. He’d done something very, very right. With his free hand, he reached up so he could feel the impossible softness of her cheek again and found it hot to the touch.

A little blush when she pulled back. A shy look at the hand she’d pulled into her lap. A quiet, nervous joke about the staff having left them to close up, and then they were clambering up and out of the booth together. When he held the door for her and she wasn’t looking, he quickly swiped one of the nondescript black umbrellas from the umbrella stand and surprised her by letting the mechanism unfold right above their heads. She squealed in surprise and jumped closer to him, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Where did that umbrella come from?” she asked, with a face like a child at a magic act. Gold remained silent and with a little smirk and a hand in the small of her back urged her to walk on. “Oh my God. Did you steal it?” she gasped.

“People forget their umbrellas all the time, Belle,” he tried to assure her. “We were the only ones left. No-one’s going to miss their umbrella tonight.”

“But what if it was the waiter’s?”

“There were plenty more.”

“But what if this specific one was his?”

“They’re all the same!”

When they reached the car and he made a move to open the door for her, she put her hand on his wrist and froze him in place. She gave him a particularly unfair look that was half disappointed and half hopeful. “Put it back.”

Oh, dear. It seemed he’d fallen for someone with an overly sensitive conscience, and he was powerless to resist, because those eyes and that pouting lip were making his stomach twist unpleasantly. “Alright,” he sighed, and she cheered and let him open the door for her. “Get in, then, Saint Belle. I’ll be right back.”

“Wait!”

He hadn’t even turned away yet, and she was already tugging at his sleeve to stop him. She looked a little embarrassed again. “Not now! You’ll get wet!” she explained. “Take me back here some day when it’s not raining. Put it back then.”

“You want me to walk in here with an umbrella on a sunny day?”

She flashed him a shy grin, shrugged, then quietly said, “I want you to take me out again,” and made his knees feel weak. She was literally too cute for words, so all he could do was smile and nod. The rain was tapping a pleasant rhythm on the umbrella right above their heads, and he was convinced that if she didn’t stop smiling at him like that, his heart would burst at the seams, which is why it was a good thing she let him open the door for her now. At least he could stop staring for a moment.

Stolen (well, borrowed) umbrella in the backseat, a smiling Belle right next to him, Gold drove as slowly as he could so that they could knit this night a little longer, but it was no use. He would have driven around town until he ran out of gas if he wasn’t so sure that that would have constituted abduction. They arrived in front of her building just as the rain stopped. She let him open the door for her again, but this time he did spy a little roll of her beautiful eyes. Perhaps seven times in one day was a little too much. She told him there was a trick to the iron wrought gate, and that one had to lift it and jiggle just a bit to get it to open and close properly.

Standing on her porch, safe just in case the rain started up, it seemed they couldn’t quite bring themselves to say goodbye. Belle held her roses in her arms again. She looked lovely holding those, Gold thought.

“I had a really great time,” she said.

“Me too, but… I’m sorry about the restaurant.”

She smiled and shook her head. “It’s alright. I meant what I said. I just wanted to spend time with you. And that restaurant, well… It’s just not very you, that’s all. It’s who you made yourself out to be before, and we’re past that. At least, I thought we were. I think you let me past that, right?”

Every time she sounded so unsure, he wanted to wrap his arms around her. He just smiled instead, gave her a reassuring nod and said, “What if I cook you dinner next time?”

“Yes! Perfect!” she cried. “And then catch a film, maybe?”

“Anything you like. I’ll call you tomorrow so we can figure out when.”

Another strange moment of silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable in the least. She just stared at him and chewed her lip, then after a few seconds asked him, “This is where you kiss me good night, yeah?”

That was all the invitation he needed. He stepped closer and put a hand on her hip. She threw her arms around his neck, and the bouquet of roses rustled pleasantly behind his head. The kiss was different, now. Stronger somehow. She was far bolder with her lips, and God, he wanted her so much. He wanted to crush her to his chest and kiss her properly, because that was the one thing he knew he was good at. The one thing he’d always been told he could pride himself on. But that might lead to something…

He broke the kiss but stayed close. Her voice was soft and fragile, with a hint of self-conscious laughter pulling at his heartstrings. “I know the answer to this, but… I don’t suppose you’d come up with me on the first date, would you?”

He felt her breath on his lips, they were that close still. She had to have been some sort of mind reader. Maybe that’s how she did it; with their foreheads pressed together and those eyes staring deep into his. Maybe she actually didn’t just read his thoughts. Maybe she stole them. Maybe that was why when she pulled back and smiled at him, he’d almost forgotten what it was he was thinking about.

“I think slow is good,” he murmured.

“I can do slow,” she replied, nodding. “I actually think I might like slow.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for not dragging you up there and ravishing you,” she giggled. “That’s just common courtesy.”

He laughed, and she joined in, and he felt so incredibly happy in that moment. 

“But the moment you’re done with slow, let me know, alright?” she murmured, the blush on her cheeks and the shyness of her smile a stark contrast with her boldness. “Anytime, sunshine. I mean it.”

“Alright,” he said, his heart beating faster in his chest, screaming at him to just get over it and go up with her with every single beat. “Anytime.”

His delayed erection in the car was probably the most ridiculous passive aggressive interaction anyone could have with themselves (“You could have been putting me to good use by now, you know.”), Gold decided, but he tried not to let that ruin his night. It had gone well. It had gone so incredibly well, and after that near-disaster in the restaurant, it didn’t really take any effort, either. It just… They just worked. He hadn’t ruined anything yet. Maybe he wasn’t going to ruin it at all.

Maybe.

…

‘Good night, Belle. Pleasant dreams.’  
 _‘Sleep tight sunshine :)’_

Despite the fluttering in his stomach and the caffeine coursing through his veins, Gold fell asleep that night and slept a deep, dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed it in-text; the amazing kamdensl over on Tumblr [drew Belle's selfie with Gold and recreated the text conversation between Neal and Gold](http://kamdensl.tumblr.com/post/112086717186/remedial-french-chapter-8-but-hey-do-you-have-a) and it's amazing. <3


	9. Floodgates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paella, a terrible movie, not a bike shed, and booze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You really are the loveliest bunch of people. Thank you.
> 
> My fingers slipped and I 12k'd it.

It was a very strange but pleasant feeling, going back to work on Monday knowing that when he saw her that morning, it would be different somehow. He arrived to an empty teacher’s lounge because he’d woken too early, wide awake from the moment he opened his eyes. In the familiar morning quiet, Gold lined up their favorite mugs (chipped, cracked and tea-stained, but entirely theirs) and waited for Belle to arrive. If he hadn’t known any better, he would have thought that the butterflies in his stomach fluttered in time with the clock ticking time away on the wall. (At his age, honestly.) But for the first time in months, Gold didn’t mind the feeling. Not even that moment when she walked in the room and his stomach did that thing he’d only ever known it to do when he missed a step on the stairs. She smiled, and he smiled back, and everything was different, but still the same.

So they had their tea and their chat, complained about students, wondered if they knew they were just as bored as them, and left the meaningful things unsaid - apart from one little thing. One little question that she let slip out in between banal remarks about the lovely spring weather, posed to him with her nose crinkled cutely and a lopsided smile.

“D’you think we both subconsciously kept coming in early just to spend time with each other?”

“Sounds like something we’d do.”

And then the rest of the day demanded to be acknowledged, which was to be expected, but no less inconvenient. The thing to do was to make sure not to smile whenever he was thinking about her, which was difficult, but not as difficult as not thinking about her at all had proven to be. When he was alone with her for a quick moment in between classes, however, there was no need to hold back quite as much, but the urge to reach out and touch her was so great he felt the muscles of his arm twitch in anticipation. Just her wrist, or something. Just lightly. Just for a moment. Just to make it feel real, because it didn’t feel that way. What made it even more unreal was the fact that it seemed as if she was feeling it, too; that tension, that promise, that crackle in the air. At least, that was how he interpreted that smile of hers.

Some time in the early afternoon while he had his little flock of sleepy sheep busy themselves in silence, he heard her heels click closer to his door. She appeared in his doorway with a smile and mouthed, “See you later,” and when he realized that he’d sighed once she was out of sight, it was too late to cover it up with a cough. Daniels snorted and shook his head. Gold swallowed and glared. The boy bent his head back over his book. Good. Very good.

He didn’t see her again until she came for him in the afternoon, and then they walked to the parking lot and kissed each other on the cheek, because apparently that was their new normal, now. That was a thing he could just do, now. Just kiss her hello and goodbye. Just like that. To part ways, then, knowing it would only be a few hours before they saw each other again, was a curious feeling. There was something so very safe about this thing they had, even though the thought of being alone with her still thrilled him.

A quick stop at the grocery store, an even quicker shower, and then Gold set to work on dinner. He wanted to get as much done as he possibly could before Belle arrived and turned him into a stammering fool again. He felt competent like this - moving pots and pans about, slicing and dicing, nudging kitchen cabinets shut with his knees and generally knowing what the hell he was doing. It was a welcome burst of confidence, and he could only hope that it would stay with him all night. He’d been such a nervous mess that Saturday, and she’d been so sweet, trying to reassure him throughout. It wasn’t that she seemed bothered having to hold his hand through the entire ordeal (or half of it, at least) but surely that was because she was too kind a person to look as annoyed as she ought to have been. Perhaps after tonight, things would be easier.

The doorbell sounded about a minute past six and a quick nervous chill came over him, but then it just… passed, and he was alright again. Smiling, even, as he opened the door and found her on his doorstep with a mischievous grin and a clear plastic bag full of apples, wearing a bright red jacket that made it look as if she’d gone to pick them in the forest. Gold wouldn’t have been that surprised if a wolf had followed her here and was hiding just around the corner. Silent, she raised a challenging eyebrow and nodded towards her offering - her tipsy threat that night she stayed over, made good on as promised. Gold smirked, rolled his eyes and stepped out of the way, motioning with an elegant flourish for her to enter. She didn’t walk past him right away. Instead, she put a hand on his shoulder, reached up and kissed his cheek.

“Thought you weren’t gonna let me in if I had these with me?” she teased.

“I actually have a use for them tonight, so I’ll allow it. Just this once,” he said. He leaned down, kissed her cheek and took the fairly heavy bag from her. That meant he couldn’t take her coat, of course, but occasionally one had to make choices in life.

“Apple cake?” she asked, shrugging off her jacket and hanging it away, grinning at him over her shoulder. Her eyes twinkled prettily and she wriggled her eyebrows up and down, and Gold felt the first wave of utter adoration of the night wash over him and conjure up a daft smile on his face. He shook his head, because no; no apple cake. He’d forgone dessert entirely, actually, figuring he could just buy her a mountain of popcorn and candy later. But now that she was actually here, and looking particularly adorable in her high waisted skirt and that blouse with the golden buttons he liked, he was beginning to regret that decision. He wouldn’t have had the time, but he should have at least tried. It didn’t matter anymore, though. Now he just had to make sure he didn’t ruin dinner and kept her entertained, or interested at least.

With her bright red jacket hung away and sticking out like a sore thumb next to his dark coats and scarves, he could put a hand in the small of her back to guide her to the kitchen where she made quite the show of inhaling deep and making an interesting little sound that could (but shouldn’t) be described as a moan. “It smells delicious in here! What are you making?”

“Paella. Hope that’s alright.”

“Oh my God, yes!” she cried out, making him laugh.

“I went with chicken. Didn’t want to risk seafood.”

“I don’t have any allergies if that’s what you mean, but I like chicken better.”

“Yeah? Really?” he asked, unable to hold back a little sigh of relief.

She grinned, nodded and told him, “Yes. Really. And I really like your apron, by the way. Classy.”

He looked down and blinked in confusion. Classy? It was just a regular black apron. He’d stupidly started cooking with his suit jacket still on, and then it occurred to him only after he’d spilled oil on the countertop that perhaps he should take that off and roll his sleeves up at least, and then it took him another ten minutes of slicing fruit to remember the fact that someone at some point in history had invented the humble apron, and he had one lying around, in fact. This very one. A classy one, apparently.

“But, uh, you said you had a use for these apples,” she said, her voice a little deeper as if she were asking him to spill a secret.

“Ah, yes,” he replied, opening the fridge door to take out a large pitcher. “Sangria. I know you’re driving, but I couldn’t resist. You’ll just have to contain yourself.”

She gasped and clasped her hands together, and Gold snorted at her excitement. Perhaps he could get away with this dessert-less dinner after all.

“Figured we might as well go the whole Spanish hog.”

She was curiously silent as he took a knife out of the drawer, so he gave her a quick look to see if he’d accidentally said something terrible, but it appeared he needn’t have worried; she was grinning as if she’d downed half the pitcher already, and it made his lips twist into a smile, too.

“What?”

She shrugged and let her grin grow wider still. “Impressive, that’s all. Can I help?”

 _Impressive._ The word lit a little fire in his chest; a childish sense of pride sparked by the simple fact that he’d managed to please her somehow. He tried to force his face back into a more or less disinterested expression (hopeless, really) and told her, “If you’d be so kind as to cut up one of those magical self multiplying apples of yours -” He paused to hand her a knife. “ - and just add that to the pitcher, I can see to the paella.”

“Cubes? Slices?”

“Thin slices would be best, I think. The other fruit’s cubed, but it’s been in there longer. And please be careful with that knife. It’s very sharp.”

She smirked. “I won’t bleed all over your fancy apron, I promise.”

“Don’t worry about _that_. That’s exactly why I got a black one.”

…

They sat at the kitchen table because Gold knew that his great big dining room table would just make him seem more lonely in her eyes, and he was quite through with inspiring pity in the woman he was supposed to be impressing. Plus, it meant that they could sit closer, and getting closer to her was rather the point of this whole dating endeavor, was it not? Slowly but surely inching closer until the idea of touching her somewhere a little more forward didn’t seem so delusional a thought - that was the plan. The sun was setting lower beyond the kitchen window, turning the sky a pretty orange and pink, and the green of his garden a few shades darker. Belle seemed a little more quiet than usual, but for some reason, Gold didn’t worry much about that. She looked content. Pleased. Not bored, not awkward. Perhaps just a little tired after a day’s work, but definitely enjoying her meal. Either she had been trying to hide her voracious appetite at the restaurant, or his cooking was much better than the chef’s, because she had tackled her first place with surprising enthusiasm, peppering him with compliments throughout. When he fixed her another plate with the nicest bits of chicken, Gold realized that he’d missed this. Cooking for someone else. It had been a while. He didn’t think she was faking her appreciation either, and that little flame of pride grew just a smidgeon bigger still.

So he sat and watched her finish her second helping, and wished she didn’t have to drive back home later tonight; he’d made far too much of that sangria, and she was sipping it as if it were precious. Bad planning. Shortsighted. Should have ditched the sangria and figured out dessert instead. His useless self-criticizing internal monologue was rudely interrupted by the intensely grating sound of his phone buzzing on the marble kitchen countertop. Belle looked up with her mouth full of rice, cheeks even puffier now (not unlike a small rodent), and quirked an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Ignore it.”

With her mouth still full, she could only shake her head, make a muffled sound he understood to be intended as permission and wave her hand to indicate that it was alright. Once she’d swallowed her mouthful and he still hadn’t made a move to go read whatever message it was, she chirped, “Go on! Could be important!”

He doubted it, but she kept up her stare and refused to scoop up that last forkful, so Gold sighed and did as she bade him. He unlocked his phone and was relieved to see it was just Neal, and not… Well, no-one else texted him, really, but now would have been a terrible time for his colleagues to start.

“It’s my son,” said Gold, not quite able to stop himself from smiling. “He says hi.”

Sort of. _‘Say hi for me if u haven’t accidentally poisoned her x’_ was something he wasn’t going to read out loud just in case she’d been mistaken about those allergies after all.

“Tell him I said hi back!”

He texted him just that, then turned it off completely. There was a way to stop it from vibrating, Gold knew, but he didn’t feel like figuring that out just then. Back on the kitchen counter it went, and back to his seat right next to hers went Gold.

“You and your son seem super close,” she said, pushing a few remaining grains of rice around on her plate.

“Really?”

He was too late to realize that that was perhaps a bit of an odd reaction. Belle frowned and remained silent, just offering a slight nod that was either meant to affirm her earlier statement, or prompt some sort of explanation. Or both. Both seemed likely. He licked his dry lips and shrugged. “We’re on the mend,” he explained, his voice dry and a little more small than he’d expected. “We were close before, but then things went bad for a long time. It’s still fragile, but it’s… it’s getting better. It’s good.”

She’d been listening intently, compassion in her eyes, and hadn’t he just told himself he was through making her pity him? He offered up a reassuring smile and hoped that would do the trick. Gold wasn’t sure where that had come from, actually. He could have just agreed that they were close and kept it at that. He hadn’t talked about his son like that with anyone, really, except that one time he and Higgins got incredibly drunk after a particularly hellish week and the whisky had loosened his tongue and his grip on his precious personal life. But that was years ago, and at that point he had known her for years. Belle hadn’t even really asked for an explanation, and yet he offered one up. Freely and honestly, if a bit vague. She’d peeled a few more layers from him than he’d initially thought.

“If you want to talk about it,” she said softly, putting her fork down quietly as she could, “I’d like to listen.”

He had no doubt, but Gold didn’t want to do that. Not yet. He wanted to think and speak of pleasant things, and make her smile as much as he could before she left him on his own again and made this house feel emptier than it had in years. So he smiled and asked her, “Can I keep that story for some other time?”

“Yeah, course. I didn’t mean to pry. I’m glad things are good between you, now.”

“You were hardly prying.”

She smiled at him, but there was something a little sad about it. Or nervous, perhaps, because he saw her fingers grasp the edge of the table for a moment, the blood draining out of the very tips and turning them white as bone. “Actually, I think I have been. Prying, I mean. And it’s something I’ve been meaning to explain, or just… I don’t know. I’m not sure if I should, because I’m not sure you noticed, and if I bring it up I might actually create the problem I’m imagining is there, and well…”

Her nervous laughter made his heart drop straight down into his stomach where it was heavy and ice cold. It reminded him of her adorable, flustered, gloriously brave speech in his classroom, sitting on his desk together, spilling her heart. Gold swallowed. Could she not hurry this up before his imagination ran away with him and he had a heart attack?

“When I got home after our date, I…” She sighed and looked down at her fingers, still hooked on the edge of the table. “I was sort of shocked. At myself. For, uh… Well, I said a few things that would send any man running in the opposite direction.”

She looked up, now, which was good, because he couldn’t find the words to say how preposterous that was, so it was essential for her to see his flummoxed expression instead. But it didn’t look like that would do the trick; she just stared and waited for a reply of some sort, so Gold decided on a joke, though the mood didn’t seem right.

“Limp.”

She didn’t even smile. “I’m serious.”

“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Belle,” he assured her, reaching over to touch his fingers to hers, still clutching at his table as if for support. The light touch made her shoulder drop just a bit, took the tension out of them, and although she was still visibly nervous, the fact that his simple touch had made it a little bit better made him feel warm inside.

“Well, just take it from me, then,” she sighed, her cheeks slowly turning red. “I was being presumptuous, and it hit me full force when I got home. And we haven’t even gotten to the part where I was _this_ close to shamelessly begging you to come up with me even though you were obviously uncomfortable.”

“Where is this coming from?” he asked, willing down the little burst of heat the words _shameless_ and _beg_ had conjured up just under his collar. “I can’t think of anything you said that was presumptuous. I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was bloody flattered.”

“But… you looked terrified. Not all the time, but…”

God, every time she turned so quiet and fragile, his heart took a beating. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. “Yes, alright. I was flattered and terrified,” he admitted, smiling when her unexpected laughter made the knot in his stomach dissolve. “But that’s not on you. The last time I went on a proper date, I called her on a phone with an external antenna, for God’s sake.”

“Well, then… I wasn’t gonna expand on this if you hadn’t noticed, but I feel like if you haven’t yet, you will soon, and maybe I should just tell you. Pretend I didn’t if it’s embarrassing and weird, okay?”

“Oh, I can’t promise you that, dear,” he teased in a low growl, hoping to make her laugh again. She was blushing, smiling nervously. He wanted to kiss her.

She pushed her chair back a little and crossed one leg over the other, her hands folded neatly in her lap. “Fair enough,” she said. “What I wanted to say is that with you, I… I just… It’s this weird thing where I want to play it cool, but absolutely can’t. I like you too much. I’ve been waiting to get to know you like this for way too long, and well…”

She trailed off, and Gold felt the last of the tension in his shoulders melt away. He almost laughed in relief, even, because really? Was that it? She’d taken on the tone of a doctor delivering bad news to a patient’s loved ones to tell him something brilliant as that? He’d been having that same problem, too. It manifested itself in countless unsent texts, un-bought presents, and swallowed endearments, too.

Belle furrowed her brow and chewed her lip, deep in thought until suddenly she burst into a subdued, embarrassed giggle and continued, “Floodgates, y’know? I thought that once we’d been honest with each other, I’d stop overcompensating for your shyness, but I thought wrong. And I feel like you wouldn’t tell me if I was being a bit much, so I do worry sometimes.”

Oh, God. This was his fault, and his fault entirely. Gold bet that if he told her about that ridiculous moment where he caught himself planning to ditch their own wedding reception, she would feel so much better about herself. But then she would run. And he would be sad. So he didn’t. But he did slide his chair closer, reached out and took one of her hands in his - so small it made him want to see if he couldn’t fit both of hers in one of his entirely. “I don’t have a single complaint about you. In fact, if you’d been just a little less forward with me, I’d still be acting as if I’d barely noticed that there was a new English teacher at all, let alone that I was smitten with her.”

She nodded gravely, trying to subdue a pleased little smile. “That’s true.”

“And if I seemed off at all, it’s only because I’m not used to this anymore. And especially with you, it just… This doesn’t feel entirely real to me just yet.”

“Not real?” she asked, eyebrows knitted together, big blue eyes full of questions.

“I’ll put it this way,” he said, giving her hand a little squeeze. “If one of these days you’re flirting with me, and I turn around and see some tall handsome man standing there, and then I find out you’ve been talking to him all this time, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

She cackled, throwing her head back and allowing his eyes to stray to the curves and lines of her pale neck. Oh, yes. He was going to have to kiss that pretty soon. Be a shame not to. “What, like, _the whole time?_ ” she laughed. “Like some guy’s been following you and standing behind you for months?”

“Precisely,” he said, nodding seriously. “Since our first meeting at the library.”

“D’you need me to break out the texts again? Cause I will, and there’s more, and they get _pretty_ shameful,” she warned him.

“No, no, it’s alright, I haven’t had enough sangria for that. Sorry. I must be getting on your nerves.”

“Not at all. I just don’t see how you can be this negative about yourself, that’s all.”

“Practice.”

She rolled her eyes, pushed her chair back, and before he knew it she had plopped herself down in his lap - nearer to his knees than anywhere dangerous, thank fuck - and put her hands on his shoulders to give them a firm squeeze. God, but this was a lovely perspective. She was looking down at him through half lidded eyes, because she hadn’t tilted her head down. She looked regal, and just a touch stern, and just magnificent, really. Where was he supposed to keep his hands, though? He decided to wrap his arms loosely around her waist. That seemed safe. God, and nice, too. Soft and warm.

“Well, there’s no man standing behind you,” she murmured, her lips fighting against a smile. “There’s a cat out in your garden,” she said, nodding towards the window, “but that’s not my bag.”

Gold tried to look over his shoulder and out of the window to see whether it was that ginger one that showed up every once in a while, but she’d cupped his cheek and turned his head back to face her before he could really see. He tilted his head up to catch her lips, but she smiled and pulled back. He damn near growled. Taste of his own medicine, was it?

“Dinner was delicious,” she said, her smile growing ever bigger. “Thank you so much.”

He shrugged and tightened his arms around her waist just a tiny bit. “Reserve your praise. I forgot dessert, so I don’t know what we’ll do about that.”

Belle gave him a strange look, her eyes narrowed and her brow creased, and she kept up that stare for a moment while his heart began to pick up the pace, but then she just grinned, and it was _his_ turn to look bewildered. “Stop leaving the goal wide open, will you?” she teased gently, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I’m trying to behave.”

And then she slipped off his lap, gathered their plates and carried them to his kitchen sink, leaving him with a cold lap and wide eyes. Oh, she was glorious, and he was far too slow on his feet for the likes of her. He teasingly reminded her of the existence of his dishwashing machine yet again, and couldn’t resist looking over his shoulder to see if that cat she’d mentioned was still there. And yes, there it was. A pair of bright yellow eyes stared back at him. It was the ginger stray cat, and it blinked slowly just once, then slinked off to the back of the garden and leapt over the fence.

“Let’s go. Don’t wanna be late.”

He couldn’t help her out of her jacket earlier, but he could help her in now, and once she’d joshed him gently for bothering, they took his car and made it just in time for the only movie the town’s small theater was planning on showing that night. It looked terrible, but that was beside the point. He just wanted her near for a couple more hours, that was all, and if sitting through an awful movie was the way to do it, then that was what Gold would do.

The place was nearly empty. Two small groups of people sat somewhere in the middle, and then two more latecomers sat down somewhere near the front row, almost making his eyes water sympathetically. Who in the hell ever sat in the front row for a movie? He and Belle had claimed seats in a row way in the back of the room, where it turned out he might as well have sat in the front, because he wasn’t looking at the screen much anyway. He kept glancing over at her, because the constant changing lights made her face look so very different with each and every flash of color, and it was fascinating. She seemed rapt for the first ten minutes or so, with her lips slightly parted and her eyes open wide, but then she began to glance back at him. They would spend a few seconds smiling at each other, and then they turned back to the screen and pretended to be interested whatever ridiculous plot it was that required so many onscreen explosions. Every once in a while, he would feel her eyes on him again, and he caught her stare. She would grin and look back at the screen again, and they did this for a little while until neither of them could bother pretending anymore. After half an hour of dismal dialogue and an endless supply of exploding tank trucks, her fingertip began drawing circles on the back of his hand, and he bit his tongue to keep from making some sort of inappropriate appreciative noise. So simple a touch, so faint, and all the more electric for it. His heart beat faster, his stomach clenched, and he forced himself to think of numbers, and not those fingers some place else, because now was _not_ the bloody time. Slow, they’d said, and the back of a fucking theater was never mentioned. He turned his hand over and took hers so that it couldn’t do any more damage than it already had. She hadn’t meant to. The next time their eyes met, Gold could see she was thinking the same thing. They didn’t want to be here at all.

So he leaned in to whisper exactly that suggestion in her ear, but then it became clear that they weren’t on entirely the same page after all, because she tilted her head and leaned in to kiss him instead. His nose bumped into her cheek awkwardly and she pulled back in shock, her entire face turning a charming red in what must have been record time. Gold bit his tongue again to keep from laughing while she buried her face in her hands and tried to muffle her embarrassed laughter that way. Poor thing. He leaned in again, couldn’t resist playfully bumping his nose against her ear, and asked her if she wanted to leave. Still embarrassed, Belle didn't look up, but she nodded, and they gathered their things and quietly walked out. Gold felt his laughter build up in his chest, like a balloon slowly inflating and bursting the moment the doors fell shut behind them. It was much darker out now, but he could still see that poor Belle’s blush hadn’t subsided yet. She looked defiant, clutching her half empty bucket of popcorn to her chest, jutting her chin out and trying to pout through her smile.

“Before you ask; yes, I did think we were about to make out in the back of a movie theater. Floodgates, okay?”

“Shall we go back in, then?” he teased.

“No, no, that’s fine,” she sang, waving his offer away. “There are much better places to kiss. I mean, _in which_ to kiss.”

Gold snorted, squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. She hadn’t opened the floodgates at all, he knew, and he had no idea how he was going to survive when she did. He heard her giggle in a deeper voice that made the base of his skull tingle pleasantly, and then she slipped her arm around his, pulling herself closer to him.

“I don’t want to go home yet. Up for a walk?”

“The promenade?”

“Perfect.”

He’d brought his cane just in case, and it was waiting for him on the backseat of his car. If Belle planned on clinging to him the way she did as they walked to the car (and he hoped she did) the pace wouldn’t be a problem, anyway. They drove to the water while she ate the rest of her popcorn and he tried to make her laugh at the most inopportune moments (mostly when her mouth was full) with disparaging jokes about what little of the movie’s plot they’d stuck around for. By the time they arrived, the sun had set completely, and the promenade’s lamp posts lit up against the dark blue sky, drawing them a path to follow. Arm in arm, smiling at no-one and nothing in particular, the pair of them set off.

“Why are we the only ones here? It’s such a lovely evening. Not cold at all.”

They weren’t alone, exactly. Gold could see a couple walk hand in hand just a ways up ahead, and there was a man sitting on a bench somewhere behind them, but it was nice and calm, and the sea breeze was strong but pleasantly warm indeed. It made his hair flap about a bit more than he’d liked, but Belle hadn’t worn her hair up that day, and she had it much worse. He tried to shield her with his body as much as he could. That wasn’t very much at all, as it turned out. She kept having to pull the hair from her face, and he couldn’t wipe away his amused smirk, which made her smile and pout at the same time.

“I think your hair might behave itself if we head down the pier,” he said, the sight of her struggling too pitiful to behold.

“Oh, thank God. Yeah, let’s do that.”

And her hair did stop trying to smother her, which was good, because now she was smiling a whole lot more. It was darker out there; the string lights that usually lit up the pier only went up when school let out for the summer, and there were still a few weeks in between now and then. It was eerie, in a sense, to slowly walk past shuttered kiosks in complete darkness when it felt so much like a warm summer evening. It made the place feel desolate, in the best of ways. As the sea lapped gently at the wooden pillars below, Gold decided he was glad the rest of this sleepy town hadn’t caught up yet. He could buy her ice cream and they could enjoy the pretty lights when the time came. For now, this strange summer evening in spring was theirs and theirs alone, and it was enchanting, if a bit dark.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked him, wrapping her arm a little bit tighter around his.

He looked down to see her beaming at him, swallowed a wise-ass remark and nodded.

“Why were you so convinced I couldn’t be interested in you?”

“Because you’re - ”

“No, no. It doesn’t have anything to do with me, really. It goes deeper than that. Doesn’t it?”

He sighed and looked away from her piercing stare. “I’d hate to turn this into a therapy session.”

“It’s just conversation.”

Gold huffed. No, it wasn’t. It really wasn’t. It was open-heart surgery at the hands of a bouncy, giggly bundle of questions.

“You said it’s been a while. Since you went out on date, I mean. And I understand that, I really do. I just get the feeling that if we hadn’t had this…” She trailed off and screwed up her pretty face as she tried to find the right word. “… this _chemistry_ , I could have kept trying to get you to open up for ages and you wouldn’t have budged an inch.”

“Perhaps I’m just difficult to get close to.”

Belle snorted and rolled her eyes. “ _Perhaps_ ,” she repeated, mocking him fondly. “I think we’ve established that. I’m just wondering if there’s a reason, that’s all.”

“Not a singular one, I don’t think.”

“So… A whole bunch of different little reasons?”

“Are you going to drag every single one out of me?”

Her eyes widened, and for a heart-stopping moment, Gold feared that his tone had been too serious, but then her face snapped back into the brightest grin, and she shook her head. “No. No, I’m not.”

And then she took back her arm, grabbed him by the sleeve and gently tugged him towards one of the shuttered kiosks. The one that sold churros, if he remembered correctly. Grinning wickedly, Belle only let go of his sleeve once they both stood underneath the dusty, rain-streaked, red and white striped awning of the kiosk.

“I,” she declared, leaning back against the wooden structure, “am going to make out with you in this improvised bike shed.”

“In this _what?_ ” he sputtered. Oh, but he’d heard it loud and clear. His heart screamed yes, and most of his head did too, except for a tiny, annoying little voice that was easily drowned out by his heart thumping in his chest when she beckoned to come closer.

“So you got me to the bike shed,” she said, completely disregarding his nervous outburst. “I lied and said I needed to go see the nurse, you got kicked out of class on purpose but haven’t yet presented yourself to the headmaster for your caning.”

He laughed and shook his head, but curiously, his feet were bringing him closer and closer to where Belle was waiting for him. Smiling, worrying her bottom lip, leaning back against the kiosk with her hands clasped loosely behind her back.

“We’re in the clear. What are you gonna do?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, very serious, Gold. Not playful at all. Dead serious. Can’t you tell?”

He was almost close enough to touch her, now, and it seemed that he would have to be the one to do it. It was a direct challenge, the way she just stood there, her hands still behind her back, an eyebrow quirked in expectation.

“You understand that it’s a bit weird for me to be imagining myself with a school girl, yes?”

She rolled her eyes and smirked. “Not if I’m imagining myself with a school boy at the same time.”

“Belle,” he growled. He was close enough to lean down and kiss her, now. “You know how old I am.”

“I do,” she mewled, smiling like a little devil. He felt his resistance slipping away the longer she kept up that look of hers.

“If you’re looking for someone spontaneous and impulsive,” he tried, “I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Oh. So you _don’t_ want to make out with me.”

“That’s not fair,” he chuckled.

“I’m just saying we don’t have to stand still to take things slow.”

Fair point. Fair fucking point, and when she smirked and shrugged, he was lost. Had been before that, but just a little more lost, now. Lost completely.

“Do we really need the scenario?” he sighed. The dying words of his reluctance.

“Yes,” she decided with a serious nod. “I’m trying to get you to channel your inner teenager.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” he warned her.

“Saying something like that isn’t exactly going to make me go off the idea, y’know. Now come on. Bike shed. What would you do?”

What a terrible time to be struck by the utter blueness of her eyes again. They sucked the resistance out of him. Made him feel malleable. And actually, as he shuffled a little bit closer, Gold realized that that was alright. More than alright. Perfect. He licked his dry lips, shrugged and murmured, “I’d offer to share my last cigarette.”

The corners of her mouth twitched up in a split second victorious grin the moment she realized she’d won. “Let me guess. Wasn’t your last one?”

“Ah, so I wouldn’t have fooled you.”

“Wouldn’t have had to. What then?”

She still had her hands clasped behind her back. Just a few weeks ago, he would have interpreted that in a completely different way, but it was obvious to him now that she wanted him to do his part for once. Too right. He’d been letting her do all of the work since he’d met her, and she was looking so incredibly fucking beautiful in what little moonlight there was, her eyes as blue as ice and yet impossibly warm and inviting, and he wondered if she was wearing that same perfume again, and -

Fuck it.

Gold hooked his cane on the metal frame of the awning above their heads and smirked at Belle’s little giggle. She’d stop giggling in a second, unless she was very ticklish. He reached over to gently brush her hair behind her shoulder so her neck was bare, taking a moment to register the softness of it. He put a hand on her waist and leaned in closer, catching a whiff of her perfume. A different one, today. Just as nice. Close enough, now, Gold faintly brushed his lips against the skin of her pretty pale neck, leaving the lightest of kisses there, smiling when he felt her hands on his arms. Finally. He smelled a hint of popcorn, too.

“Straight for the jugular, huh?” she breathed, sliding a hand up his arm and over his shoulder to rest there, her fingers digging into the fabric of his jacket.

He kissed a spot a little nearer to her clavicle. “I didn’t get any complaints then,” he murmured against her skin.

“You’re not getting any now.”

She slipped her other hand inside of his jacket, warm through the thin fabric of his shirt, and then she tilted her head, giving him more skin to kiss. He could never pass up an offer like that. He went slow, kissed as lightly as he could, and listened to hear which spots made her breath catch in her throat.

“This is pretty smooth for a teenager,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

“I’ll be honest,” he replied in between a kiss to her jawline and one just under her ear, “there was a lot more saliva involved.”

He felt the vibrations of her laughter on his lips, and it made him smile. “And I’d have given you a hickey by now, being a bit of a territorial type back then. But that would look unprofessional, wouldn’t it?”

“It would _there_ , yeah.”

She made him laugh against her neck, but it didn’t break the spell he seemed to have accidentally cast on her, so he kissed his way over to the other side of her neck, pulling her hair over her shoulder there, too.

“So what happened to make you…”

Ah, again with the questions. Gold rested his forehead on her shoulder for just a second, then shook his head, tugged her collar out of the way and kissed a spot in the curve where her shoulder met her neck. “Lose my touch?” he offered darkly.

“No. Pretend you didn’t have one.”

“People tend to stop flirting quite so outrageously after marriage.”

“Mm, but they also tend to start up again when…”

She faltered, and so did he. He stepped back and let her hands slip from his body. Belle blinked at him with her mouth slightly open in preparation for words she couldn’t possibly say, because she didn’t _know_. She had no idea. They hadn’t talked about it at all. And it was a strange moment of clarity in the storm of their lovedrunk haze, because how well did they know each other, really? It felt as if she knew him completely, understood him somehow - but that was exactly what it was: a feeling. Not a reality. A couple of sincere drunken conversations will do that. A few personal anecdotes and some meaningful looks and comfortable silences shared in the middle of trivial conversations, too.

“Divorce,” he said, his voice suddenly dry. Belle quickly nodded in response. He could see her swallow as she bit her lip. And that was that, then. The end of the moment. At least she looked relieved, and that was the important thing. He really couldn’t have let the possibility of a dead wife haunt them like that.

“Well,” she said after clearing her throat with a nervous cough. “People tend to get out there again after a while. That’s what I meant.”

The dangerous lilt had gone from her voice, and Gold missed it dearly already. He sighed and joined her, leaning against the kiosk wall and looking out over the water. It was a lovely view, actually, with the lighthouse up ahead.

“They do. But it’s a bit more complicated when you’ve got a little one to take care of.”

“Oh.”

That was the most meaning anyone had ever managed to fit into a simple syllable. It _had_ to be. There was realization there, and compassion, and even a hint of admiration if he let himself get carried away there for a moment.

“You raised Neal on your own?” she asked quietly, her eyes flitting over every bit of his face as if she were reading it like the fine print in a contract.

Gold nodded and gave her a quick smile. He wanted to be approximately two continents away from the subject of his failed relationships. He didn’t want to utter the words ‘sole custody’. He didn’t want to talk about why it was so difficult for him to just reach out, grab her and kiss her - he just wanted to _kiss_ her. He looked back at the lighthouse for a moment, breathed in deep, sighed and then turned his most handsome smirk to the beautiful little creature in the bright red jacket standing next to him.

“And now you have to tell me about your modus operandi when you were a teenager. Only fair.”

Belle looked confused for a moment, but it didn’t take very long for her to pick up on his meaning. She mirrored his smirk, then moved to stand in front of him so they’d switched places, essentially. Curious.

“Well, I’d avoid the bike shed, for one,” she said. “Ours was at the front of the school. And plexiglass.”

“Ah, I see.”

“There was a supply closet with a broken lock, though, but that was risky because it was right next to the teacher’s lounge. There was also a patch of trees behind the main building, and we weren’t supposed to go there either, but if you managed to sneak out of class, that was the safer option.”

Gold held back his laughter. She really did make herself sound like an expert on the matter. “And then what would you do?”

“I’d, uh,” she murmured, reaching for his tie and giving it an experimental tug, “do this.”

She pulled him closer and released his tie to slide her hands up his chest. Slowly, she wrapped her arms around his neck and moved in so close he felt her breath on his lips, and it was as if she’d somehow slipped the sun in between them and he’d swallowed it down. That was the only explanation for the warmth in the pit of his stomach.

“What then?”

“I guess I liked making them nervous, so I’d just wait, really.”

“They didn’t jump at the chance?”

“You’re taking an awful long time, too.”

“Just playing along.”

She bared her teeth in a quick grin, and then suddenly her mouth was on his with an urgency that made his stomach flip about ten times in a single second. His hands went flying up into her hair, and he didn’t care if he was making a mess of it; the wind had done a good enough job at that already, and now it was his turn. It was so incredibly soft, and her lips were, too, but then she bit him. Honest to God _bit_ him, and he yelped and laughed at the same time, but she didn’t give him any chance to recover. Just claimed his lips again the moment he broke free. When he felt her tongue flick out against him, that warmth in his stomach turned into an almost unbearable liquid heat, and _fuck_ , she tasted of popcorn and sangria, and why exactly had he waited so long to do this? And how could he have forgotten how brilliant a proper snog could be? He’d probably gone and moaned into her mouth or something, because he had her hands on her sides now and he _felt_ her laugh, and she somehow managed to keep kissing him anyway. Kissing the hell out of him, actually; reducing him to a stupid, simple simmering puddle of want. He tightened his grip on her just in case she was about to plaster herself against him completely and he needed to push her away. He would have had no chance of subduing the semi he’d gone and gotten if she closed that little bit of distance between them, and slow was what they’d said. What he’d said, sure, but he’d meant it. Slow. Slow. He touched the roof of her mouth with the tip of his tongue and felt himself twitch when she grabbed his hair in response. Fucking _slow_. He kept repeating the word in his head, but it started to sound more erotic than it ever had before, so he let her tongue lick the thoughts right out of him instead.

Too much. Way too much, and way too good. He forced himself to break the kiss and take a few steps back. She looked positively ravished; her hair a mess, her cheeks stained red, her lips wet and parted and her chest heaving up and down, up and down slowly. And then she grinned.

“I don’t know how you’re gonna top that one when you kiss me good night, later,” she giggled.

Simple: He wouldn’t even try. Slow, he thought to himself on the way back to the car, willing that fucking semi back down. Slow. Slow and steady, and not up against a fucking churros kiosk on the pier. Not in the back of a movie theater. Not in the front seat of his car, even though there was definitely room to maneuver. No. No, no, no. Slow. And when she sweetly kissed him good night right before getting into her own car and driving off, he wanted to grab her hand and drag her back in the house, but no. Slow.

Fucking slow. For fuck’s sake. What was wrong with him?

…

No stuffy restaurants for their third date, and no terrible movies either. No, they had made their way to The Rabbit Hole on a Saturday night with the express purpose of getting plastered, and it turned out to have been a brilliant plan; he hadn’t laughed so much in ages, and Belle barely stopped giggling throughout the evening. They drank - oh God, did they ever drink - and joked and she kept prying his dumbest drunken anecdotes out of him, and if it had been anyone else, he might have felt like the world’s most self-centered conversationalist, but she seemed to genuinely love those little bits of his idiotic past he kept handing her. He trusted her to keep them safe, too. They passed the hours getting steadily tipsier and tipsier until suddenly, they found themselves completely and utterly piss fucking drunk. She was a _mess_ , and it was a miracle he could still see straight. One more drop of wine, or whisky, or beer, or whatever the hell the last thing they ordered was, and he wouldn’t have been able to guide her out of the bar and into the taxi he’d called. With her arms wrapped tight around one of his, Belle giggled and tried to pull him in the wrong direction.

“Taxi, Belle. We’re not walking.”

“Oh! Oh but I can walk!” she cried, making him laugh and cringe at the same time. Property prices in the vicinity of The Rabbit Hole were low for exactly this reason: rowdy drunks in the middle of the night. She definitely, definitely couldn’t walk, though. He’d fail the straight line test, too, but Belle would probably have a nice little lie down right in the middle of it.

“Well, that’s fantastic, love, but I can’t,” he lied. That did the trick. She let him guide her to the idling car, and he made sure to keep her head from bumping into the roof as she bloody near dove into the taxi. He was a lot further gone than usual, too, but at least he could give the driver the address without slurring quite as much as she would have done.

Once inside, Belle promptly crawled into his lap to giggle and slur nonsense against the skin of his neck, and he was having a hard time not laughing at the state of her. She was hilarious like this. He wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the warmth and the smell of her. Alcohol, sure, but those roses again, and she’d found some wine gums in her coat pocket earlier, and she smelled of those, too. God, but he was smashed, though. When she mumbled something else in his neck, Gold gently guided her head up from his shoulder.

“What’s that, love? Couldn’t hear you, there.”

“Happy. ‘m Happy,” she mewled, her pretty lips twisting into a smile. If he wasn’t half turned to jelly courtesy of the booze already, Gold would have melted completely. How cute. How unbearably cute.

“You’re happy?” he repeated, sliding his fingers through her long, soft hair.

“Mm. Happy. Are you happy?”

“Very happy.”

“Aw!” she cooed, clumsily cupping his cheek with her little hand. “That makes me happy.”

“You already were!”

“Happier!”

She planted a big wet kiss on his neck, and Gold squirmed and tried not to giggle. “Belle, sweetheart, you shouldn’t…”

She pulled back and gave him the saddest look he had ever seen on any living creature. Her eyes were huge and watery, her bottom lip pouting and quivering, and uh oh. Gold recognized that look from nights out with female friends back in the day. He had to be quick about this.

“Oh, no no no no no, darling, no!” he cooed, pulling her into a tight embrace before the tears started falling. “No, it’s alright! I didn’t mean it like that!” He held her close, and she sniffled once or twice, so Gold pulled her even closer and murmured some more sweet things in her hair. “It’s alright, sweetness. It’s alright.”

Oh, she was absolutely plastered indeed, and he quickly bit his tongue so as not to laugh, because he knew all too well from experience that overemotional drunk women did _not_ appreciate being laughed at, to boot. He needed to distract her. “Did you tell your friend Ruby about us, Belle?”

“Yes!” she cried, perking up and cheerily slapping her hands down on his shoulders. _Finally_ he could laugh again. “Yes! She’s so happy for us! For me. She doesn’t know you, but she’d be happy for you too if she did.”

“We met, though,” Gold reminded her. “Very briefly.”

“Oh, yeah!” she chimed. “She’s gay.”

Gold couldn’t stop a deep, warm laugh escaping from his belly, but it seemed Belle didn’t mind at all. She was skipping a few steps in this conversation, it seemed like, and it was just funny, that was all. “Is she?” he asked once he’d managed to stop laughing.

Belle nodded enthusiastically. “And we used to kiss sometimes when we were bored and drunk, but it’s been ages and I won’t anymore, I promise.”

That last part of the sentence was muffled because she’d dropped her pretty drunken head back on his shoulder again, but he managed to make it out regardless. Gold very skillfully disguised his next burst of laughter with a well-timed cough. “That’s very considerate of you, sweetheart.”

“She’s a good kisser, but you’re better,” she whispered very ineffectively (that is to say: loudly.) “Don’t tell her I told you that, though.”

Oh, good God, she’d be mortified if she remembered any of this, Gold thought to himself, smirking into the softness of her hair. “I won’t,” he assured her. “And you’re very good too, for the record.”

“ _Thank_ you!” She sounded genuinely touched. Gold couldn’t help but grin.

“You’re welcome.”

“Drunk, aren’t I?” she mumbled, playing with his hair.

“Yes, darling.”

“Too drunk?”

“You’ll live,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “Just drink lots of water when you get home.”

“No I mean…”

She lifted her head up from his shoulder again and gave him a strangely fragile look, her bottom lip caught between her teeth and her eyes open and wide as if imploring him to read her meaning there. But either it wasn’t there, or it was too subtle for a drunk person to pick up on, because Gold couldn’t read a damn thing.

“Yes?” he prodded.

She cocked her head to the side and quietly said, “For sex?”

Ah. 

“I’m afraid so, darling. As am I.”

She frowned, but nodded meekly and promptly planted her face in his chest again. He was positively sober compared to the warm little bundle of wine and emotions in his arms, but his head was swimming, and he knew that if he’d had just one more sip, just _one_ more, the world would have started spinning. Or his brain. Or his eyes. Either way, he was fucking _gone_ , but he could keep it together for her. He had to. He had to get her home.

“Wait here while I make sure she gets inside alright?” he asked when they pulled up to her building.

“Course. Don’t take too long.”

It was a good thing she'd taught him how to open that iron garden gate, and it was a good thing he’d remembered. He had no idea how he would have gotten her home otherwise, because she wasn’t cooperating much. She clung to him and messed with his already pretty dismal sense of balance, and fishing her key out of her purse was a puzzle, to say the least, but they managed to get the door open and up the stairs to her apartment somehow. He had to fit the key in the lock, though. She insisted on trying, but gave up after the first missed attempt. He kept having to shush her, too, but some part of him knew his ‘shhh’ was probably a lot louder than her giggles. He hoped he wasn’t going to fall down the stairs later. That would really put a damper on the evening.

“Should stay,” she slurred, wrapping her arms around his neck as the door creaked open. “Wouldn’t jump you, promise. Just sleep.”

It was tempting, and yet it wasn’t. “I don’t want you to see me with a hangover, lovely,” he said, trying to pry her loose without her _noticing_ he was trying to pry her loose.

“Hm, yeah, good point. ’m Gonna be a bloody mess in the morning. You’re not ready for that.”

And then she swooped in and pushed her mouth against his in what he assumed was a kiss. The sloppiness of it almost made him laugh, but he kept himself together just in case she was still a little weepy.

“Good night, Belle.”

“Night, handsome. Hey, wait!”

He turned around and smiled when he found her leaning against her doorframe lazily. “Yes?”

“We’re gonna have sex, though, right? Eventually?”

“Yes,” he said with a decisive nod, trying his very best not to grin. “Definitely.”

“Alright!” she chirped. “I’m good, then! Night!”

And with that, she closed the door, and he could grin as much as he liked as he carefully made his way down the stairs, shaking his head to himself. What the fuck had his life turned into? What had he done to deserve this bit of perfection? It was only now that Gold realized he’d been putting too much weight on his ankle that night, but the sting was bearable. The buzz must have been numbing the pain. Or perhaps he was just in too good a mood to be bothered at all.

“I’m surprised you made it out of there,” said the driver once Gold had settled into the backseat and given him the next address. “Nice catch, man.”

“Hm?”

“Your date. Your lady friend. The British chick. She’s hot.”

Oh. For a moment, Gold wasn’t sure what the correct response would be. Was this the time for a spot of irrational jealousy or possessiveness? Would it be appropriate to snap and bark at him to mind his own business? Hm. No. No, it didn’t matter. He’d probably never see the guy again, and he was in too good a mood to be the grumpy little shite he’d been for the past couple of decades.

“Australian,” he corrected him.

“Oh, right. And you?”

“Scottish.”

“Thought so.”

 _Well, congratu-fucking-lations._ The low rumble of the car’s engine was hypnotic and made him feel sleepier than he already was. He mustn’t close his eyes, Gold knew, or he would fall straight asleep. He stared out of the window and blinked at the streetlights as they zoomed by, one by one, bright yellow streaks in the darkness.

“Won the fucking lottery, didn’t I?” he muttered. “I mean, look at her. Look at _me_ , fuck’s sake.”

“Nah, don’t be so down on yourself!” sang his nosy and incredibly friendly taxi driver. “You’re a handsome guy. You look old enough to be her dad, but some chicks are into that.”

He cringed but couldn’t help but smirk. “If you say so.”

“Seriously, I wouldn’t worry about that. You’ll have to forgive me for watching, but uh, I thought I was gonna have to spray her with a water bottle or something.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being rude or not. Are you being rude?”

“I don’t think so. I’m just saying she seems really into you.”

“Oh. Good.”

They passed a few more streetlights before Gold screwed his face up, sat up straight and decided, “Actually, you know what? No. Where the _fuck_ did you come from? Are you some sort of… part-time… life coach or…” He trailed off, quieted down and slumped back in his seat. “Never mind.”

Drunker than expected. With the standard by which he’d judged himself acceptably tipsy gone and hopefully drinking lots of water and heading some place soft, it was impossible to kid himself into thinking he wasn’t making a complete fool of himself. And oh God, the hangover was going to be merciless, wasn’t it? Fuck. Gold rested his head against the window for a moment, but the car shook too hard, and it hurt, so he let it fall back against the headrest instead. That was what it was there for, after all.

“You married?” he asked, catching a glimpse of dark eyes in the rear view mirror.

“Yup. Twelve years.”

He wanted to ask him when he knew he loved her. How he could possibly have known for sure, and if he wasn’t scared to death of hurting her when he promised to be with her forever. He was never going to do that, of course; there wasn’t enough whisky in the world for him to start confiding in a complete stranger. Although, if he were going to ask anyone something like that, it would be this man, who he’d likely never see again. Whose face he hadn’t even properly seen, yet, and probably wouldn’t remember anyway. And the real question all of those _other_ little questions were dancing around was the following: Could he have fallen in love with her already? Because it sure felt like it.

It was a stupid question, anyway. Not like he could force himself to fall out of it if he had. Not like he would want to. No, it was just a matter of determining the damage done and figuring out exactly how much trouble he was in. And that wasn’t necessary at all. Not at all. No. No, this was fine. He’d talk to her on the phone tomorrow, and he’d see her on Monday, and he was probably in love with her, and she still seemed to like him, so it was fine. Well, terrifying, but fine. Could have been worse. Oh, and there was his great big empty pink house that didn’t have her in it. Delightful.

“Hey, wait!” he called out just as Gold was about to slam the car door shut.

“What is it?” he groaned, leaning down to shoot the man a glare. “My bladder’s about to burst.”

“Normally I’d keep my mouth shut, but uh, I kinda like you. And you might regret the tip you left me in the morning.”

“Oh, no. I know how much I gave you. Consider it a… a… What do you call it?”

“A tip. I just said that.”

“No no no, I’m drunk, not daft. I meant the thing you do when you give someone money to do something. Or not do something.”

“Well that first one’s called paying for services, bud.”

“Bribe!” he cried victoriously, snapping his fingers. “I mean a bribe! Consider it a bribe to keep your mouth shut.”

“About what? To who?”

“Me. Her. Us. To everyone. Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. Never mind. It’s a tip. Look, I’m pissed and I’m tired. Good night.”

“Good night.”

He slammed the car door shut, miraculously made it inside without incident, resisted the pull of his equally comfortable sofa and dragged himself upstairs to pass out in his bed, which was the appropriate place in which to pass out. Water. He needed to drink water. But he also needed to just curl up in his bed, just like that, and close his eyes, like so, and let sleep wash over him.

…

 

The hangover was still there with him in spirit on Monday, which is to say it wasn’t there at all, strictly speaking, but the memory of it was still very, very unpleasant. In the teacher’s lounge that morning, the pair of them sat quietly, stirring their tea and smiling as if they had a secret. Which, Gold supposed, they sort of did, because no-one really knew, did they? Barring Daniels who seemed to have a sixth sense for these things, no-one in this school knew. Perhaps no-one in this entire town knew. Except for that taxi driver. And everyone at The Rabbit Hole on Saturday night.

Hm.

He had talked to Belle on the phone that Sunday, but he had been such a mess. His head pounded, his tongue was too big for his mouth, and no matter how much water he poured down his throat, he was still thirsty. He was a terrible conversationalist post alcohol binge, but it seemed Belle didn’t mind. They just chatted for a while - quietly, of course - and even through the waves of nausea, Gold found the time to be amazed that she still wanted to talk to him. Not that he’d done anything wrong, but just, well, it seemed so odd that he hadn’t bored her yet.

And now they were here, much too early, much too smiley.

“I don’t remember getting home,” she said quietly. “I mean, I remember the taxi, but I… Was I very…”

“Very what?”

“Was I a bother?” she sighed.

“You were fine. A little weepy for about fifteen seconds, but completely fine and perfectly charming.”

“Oh, no,” she groaned, shaking her head. “Oh, I’m so sorry! That rarely ever happens, but I should have warned you.”

“Don’t be silly! It was nothing! You just had a little emotional moment, that’s all. It was cute.”

Something of a pattern became clear to him then, like a tiny splinter of glass on the floor catches the light from in between two floorboards where it sat and outsmarted the vacuum cleaner for months after you dropped and shattered a wine glass on your living room floor. Belle would take these confident steps towards him, move in close and reveal just a little bit more than she’d planned, and then she would shy away muttering needless apologies. She took all of the steps he desperately wanted to but couldn’t, and it wasn’t because she didn’t doubt herself. It wasn’t because she was fearless. She was uncertain, too. Just braver than him. Much braver.

“So you haven’t gone off me after seeing me like that?” she asked, her voice barely louder than a mouse’s squeak. Her shy, fragile smile was calling him. He leaned closer, curled a finger just behind her chin, gently guided her face closer and kissed her softly. He didn’t pull back until he felt her relax under his touch, and when he did, her dreamy smile made his heart flutter. Worked better than words, that.

“Any ideas for our next date?” he asked, making that smile of hers grow even bigger.

“I really don’t care. Just nothing quite as boozy for a long time, please.”

Oh, thank God. Oh thank fucking _God_ he wouldn’t have to do that again soon. It had been ages since he’d had so much fun, but then when the garbage truck beeped him awake not three hours after he had crawled into his bed, there was a split second where Gold was absolutely convinced that he had died and gone to hell.

“Deal.”

…

Another week, another perfect Friday night date, another batch of kisses that really ought to have been leading up to something more, and yet there he was, standing in front of her apartment building, quaking in his boots. He should go up with her. He should at least go up so he could lay her down somewhere soft and kiss her lights out. It was all good and well, kissing in the doorway, but he could really show her how much he wanted her, how he adored her, if she didn’t need her legs to function properly. But if he did that, it would lead to more. And he _wanted_ more. He wanted all of her. He wanted to hold her and stay with her all night so he could wake up next to that smile and do it all over again.

He really didn’t want to go home.

Her hands disappeared into his jacket, her arms wrapped around his waist, and then her sneaky hands slid down further down, grabbed and pulled him close, and fuck, _fuck_ , why didn’t he just go up with her? What was wrong with him? What was his problem, exactly?

“I’m still okay with slow if that’s what you want, but… Are you sure?” she asked, biting her lip and casting a mischievous glance at where his trousers weren’t fitting like they did before. The problem certainly wasn’t _that_.

“Oh, God. I’m sorry,” he groaned, taking a step back and hiding his face behind his hands. Treacherous fucking bastard.

“It’s alright!” she giggled, wrapping her hands around his wrists, trying to pry them from his burning face. “Compliment,” she decided. When he finally let her pull his hands away, she was smiling, and then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him with her arms wrapped around his neck and her body flush against his as if she’d forgotten about the hard-on. Or hadn’t.

“I’m just saying,” she murmured in between sweet little kisses to the corners of his mouth. “Anytime. Just call. Or text. Or show up in the middle of the night; I don’t care.”

He nodded, gave her an apologetic smile, and drove off with his tail between his legs. Back to his big, empty house.

Twenty minutes ago, he was smiling and laughing with someone who had tried to made him feel wanted ever since they met. Now he sat out in his garden, alone. It was a nice night, though. The stars were out and he wasn’t cold without his jacket. Even in the darkness, he noticed that his roses were beginning to bloom. The white ones were early this year, or was it that he just couldn’t see the red ones as well in the dark?

Fuck.

He was wasting time. He was wasting her precious time, and he wasn’t getting any younger either. What was he doing, pretending this was fine? Sitting there with his useless cup of tea, thinking of his roses when they would still be here tomorrow and the day after that, but there was a woman just a short drive away who wanted him _now_. As if he had all the time in the world. As if waiting would help. What if he was building up some sort of expectation he couldn’t meet? What if every time he went home, she expected a little more? If he was going to disappoint her, was it not best to disappoint her right away and get it over with?

God - and above all, he really didn’t want to be alone. He was lonely out here, and for the first time he really let himself feel it. Loneliness was quiet and familiar, and it was hollow, too, and it made him feel as if a light breeze could just blow him up into the air and carry him out of his garden, higher and higher until he was lost completely. Without her, he was thin skin and hot air. He was indefinite and without purpose, aim or design. He was time ticking away.

Call her. Yes. He had to call her, at least. He had to hear her voice and make her laugh, and then he would feel better. He picked up his phone and searched for her contact picture, pressing it with a finger he told himself wasn’t trembling, no. Not at all. As he waited, he coughed a few times to clear his throat so that when she picked up, he wouldn’t sound like one of the adolescent boys to whom she kept having to explain the proper use of an apostrophe.

“Hello?”

His stomach twisted.

“Belle. It’s me.” Of course it was. He hadn’t called her on her fucking rotary dial telephone in the sixties, for fuck’s sake. She knew who it was. “I’m sorry, were you sleeping?”

“I was still up, no worries. What’s up?”

“I…”

That burst of self loathing had gone and left him quiet and hollow like before. His mouth was dry, even though he had just downed the last of his tea. His stomach was still twisting. Why had he called her, really? He’d felt her absence so keenly, and he’d wanted to hear her voice, but now that he had, he only missed her more. The plan was to make her laugh, was it not? Perhaps that was his little lie to himself, to get him to pick up the phone and -

“Are you still there?” she asked, her voice soft and gentle. “Everything alright?”

“Yes! Yes, I’m sorry. I just… I don’t know how to…”

Ask.

He heard music playing in the background. Quiet and calm, somewhere in between happy and melancholy, and it was the strangest thing. Seconds ticked away, never to return again. He could hear her breathing. It made him want to be close to her. Gold licked his desert dry lips, parted them in the hopes that something sensible would come out.

But she was faster.

“Gold?”

And braver.

“D’you wanna come over?”


	10. Anytime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He comes over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya. Thank you, as always. Next chapter will take longer. Really couldn't come up with a decent summary. Apologies.
> 
> Edit: Look at [this adorable art](http://i.imgur.com/4DgBuUA.png) that [kindleheartheartzyou](http://kindleheartheartzyou.tumblr.com) on Tumblr made! :) Thank you.

There was nothing for him here in his garden. It was too dark to see the roses, really. The stars had been out before, but now great big clouds came rolling in, dark grey and heaving with rain. He could smell it in the air. He couldn’t hear her breathe anymore, and he allowed himself to imagine she was holding her breath while she waited for an answer.

“May I?”

He heard a soft sound; air from her lungs, an unvoiced little laugh. “I said anytime, didn’t I? Text me when you’re at the door. The intercom’s still broken.”

“Oh. Alright. I’ll just… Can I just… Now, d’you mean? Do you need time to -”

“You do know what _anytime_ means, don’t you?” she teased.

“Yes,” he laughed nervously, hoping his internal cringe wasn’t audible over the phone. “Yes, alright. I’ll head straight over. If that’s -” He cut himself short before he managed to ask her _yet again_ if it was alright. “I’ll come right over.”

“Great,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I can’t wait.”

No, of course not. Not anymore. She’d been waiting for far too long, so after he hung up, he let his empty cup of tea sit there on the table, grabbed his jacket, his keys, switched off every light and tried not to over-think. He realized in the car that he’d forgotten his tie with a sharp, “Fuck!” but decided against turning back and getting it. Back in the clutches of his empty house, safe in his familiar loneliness, he might back out, after all. No, he would just have to undo a button or two on his shirt, then, and hope she wouldn’t notice. He turned the radio on and immediately off again when he heard that whatever it was, it was mid-saxophone solo, and there would be none of that today. Drive.

In front of her apartment, fretting in his car, Gold discovered that his legs didn’t work. He sat in his seat, staring straight ahead and trying to breathe calm, but his stomach was doing those ridiculous things it always did when he thought of getting closer to her (but worse now that it was actually happening), and his hands were clammy on the steering wheel. Minutes passed, and with a deep, shaky sigh, he grabbed his phone, dropped it on the floor of his car, wiped his hands on his trousers, cursed and groaned as he reached for the bloody thing in between his feet, then finally got to texting. _‘I’m at the door.’_ He got out of his car, breathed in deep and tried to sigh the nerves away. When he pushed the squeaky iron garden gate open, he heard the click of the front door opening, too.

And there she was, backlit in the warm yellow light of the hallway. She looked a little flushed, like she’d run down the stairs, which she absolutely couldn’t have done if she’d been wearing those heels she’d worn on their date that night, but she was wearing flats, now, so perhaps she had. Her dress was gone, too. Instead she wore a black skirt and a green and blue flannel shirt he’d never seen her in. It fit her well, apart from the sleeves, which were a bit too long. The sight of her fingertips just peeking out of the cuffs was particularly endearing. Her hair was up, now, but it seemed like that was a practical choice. Messy. Cute.

Gold stepped closer, because she stayed standing in the doorway, just smiling at him, waiting. Still waiting. Always waiting. He licked his lips and decided he should say something. “Hi.”

_Hi, I’ve come for my ravishing._

Idiot.

“Hey,” she said, reaching out and putting a hand on his wrist. “Why don’t we -”

Before he knew it, he had grabbed her by the waist and had his lips on hers, and the way her arms came flying around him, clutching at his shoulders and pulling herself closer to him told him he’d surprised himself more than he had her. It was a desperate attempt to shake the nerves once and for all, and although that hadn’t exactly worked, it was still a damn good kiss.

“Wow,” she giggled. “Okay.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no. That was nice.”

“What were you, uh…”

“Just, y’know, inviting you in,” she said, catching his fingers and giving his arm a gentle tug in the right direction. “We can start with tea.”

Their fingers hooked together, she guided him up the stairs - wooden and old and creaky, but charming in its own way. The wallpaper was rather oddly pristine considering it looked like it had been there since the early eighties; a pale white and purple floral pattern that had somehow escaped his attention when he corralled her drunken bum to her apartment the week before. She’d left the door open; he could hear the soft tones of her music in between creaky footsteps. He wondered how late it was. He thought he’d checked the time in his car more than once, but he couldn’t remember.

He closed the door behind him, as quietly as he could. Not that he was particularly concerned about waking her neighbors; the mood just seemed to call for a gentle approach to everything. Her apartment was smaller than he’d pictured it. More open, too. The kitchen was to his right, clean if a little old-fashioned. The rest of the room was just her living room, and he couldn’t really see anything that could function as a dining table of sorts, until he noticed the chairs at the island counter. Was that where she ate her meals? Or did she just flop down onto her sofa with a bowl of cereal in the morning?

Belle slid past him to go and click the kettle on, and he watched for a moment as she stood on her tiptoes to reach into a cabinet for what he assumed was their tea, then had another look at her quaint little kitchen. Everything seemed in good nick, but for some reason just about all of the appliances were a pale avocado. Gold smiled. Belle French lived in a strange, compact time capsule. Two great big baskets almost overflowing with apples stood on the counter next to the refrigerator (yes - avocado in color) and the sight made him snort. Belle gave him a questioning look, so he nodded towards the wicker baskets.

“You cleaned out the entire orchard.”

“I didn’t. My friend did. Have at them, by the way.”

“No thank you.”

“Please?”

“Not a chance.”

She pouted for about a second or two, but then her smile broke through again. He turned around, took a few steps into the room and just looked. Everything was warm colors and soft looking fabrics. Mismatched furniture; glass candle holders in dark blues, reds and greens; a bookcase heaving with books and even more books stacked on top of it, nearly reaching the ceiling. How did she get those up there?

“Not as fancy as your lovely house, I know,” she said, drawing his gaze right back to her. Gold turned around and realized that she’d been watching him. She had her elbows on the island counter, one hand cupping her cheek and supporting her head. He smiled at her and moved closer again, putting the counter between them.

“I like it,” he said. “It’s very you.”

“Very me?”

“Colorful. Interesting.”

“I thought you were going to say tiny.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They smiled at each other for a moment, not knowing what else to do. She pushed herself up from the counter and just tapped her fingers on the edge softly, chewing her lip.

“This kettle’s really slow,” she offered.

“Yeah.”

And he didn’t even want any tea; he’d just had a cup at home. But he sure did want some time to make himself feel a little less nervous, and tea might help, provided it was some harmless, decaf herbal thing. Unless she… Yeah, no, he just realized she’d pulled a box of black tea from the cupboard. That wasn’t going to help one bit with the tight feeling in the pit of his stomach, but at least it was a charming sort of awkward, this mood.

“I’ve never seen you without a tie before.”

“Oh. And?”

Belle grinned and shrugged. “I like it. I like the, uh…” She bit her lip and pointed towards her own shirt and the triangle of exposed skin. “I like that.” And then she bit her lip and looked away again, perhaps hoping to make the water boil faster by staring at the kettle. Gold smiled. Little things like that… She liked his sleeves rolled up. She liked a few buttons on his shirt undone. Made it easier for him to believe that she fancied him. More so than her outright confessions, oddly enough.

 _Click_.

“Ah, there we are!”

Fucking finally.

“Go ahead and make yourself comfortable over there,” she said, smiling at him over her shoulder. “I’ll bring the tea.”

A small sofa to fit in her small apartment, but it was good to have her sit so close. She handed him his mug; huge and cobalt blue, and put her smiling lips to her own; a little smaller and black with white polka dots. They sat and sipped for a while, while her music played on quietly in the background and softened the silence’s sharp edges. When she’d placed her mug safely on the coffee table, she slid closer and placed her hands on his thigh - both of them - and they were so warm he nearly dropped his own mug right into his lap. The tea. The tea’d just warmed her hands, that was all.

“You alright?”

Other than a quick nod, he couldn’t move, there, for a moment. Her touch was electric and neither his body nor his whirring mind was prepared for that feeling. So he stared into his mug and felt her eyes on him, and he wished he could just snap out of this and… The words ‘be a man’ floated up from a deep dark sea and darkened his thoughts for just a moment. Meaningless, haunting words.

“It’s been a while,” he said, because it was important that she knew.

“For me, too! Can you beat six months?”

“Easily,” he muttered, reaching over to put his mug safely away before he did actually drop it. She didn’t need to know by how much he could beat that record of hers, though. He didn’t want to say. He didn’t want to think about the last drunken mistake that would have qualified as sex. He just wanted to try.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said softly, pulling her hands back. He missed the heat as soon as she took it away.

“I might not be any good.”

She was silent, so he forced himself to look up and meet her stare, which was kind, as he should have guessed. Always smiling. Always looking a little bit as if she’d love to tease him for his neurotic reactions to things that shouldn’t faze a grown man.

“It’s not all up to you, y’know. More like a team effort.”

“Only takes one person to ruin it.”

“ _Ruin_ it?” she laughed, her eyebrows shooting up.

Yes, alright, he was being dramatic. A bit. Perhaps. And it was cowardly to try and get her to lower her expectations like this, but he’d never claimed to be a courageous man.

“Look,” she sighed when it became clear he didn’t have an answer for her, reaching over to put a hand on top of his. Still warm. “Do you want to stay here with me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to stay here with me and kiss an awful lot?” she asked, her lips beginning to curl into a smile.

He smiled. “Very much so, yes.”

“And if staying here and kissing an awful lot takes us somewhere new, would that be alright?”

And with that, Belle had taken the end of a string in between her dainty fingers, and with a gentle pull made part of the whole, convoluted mess come undone. Just a bit. Just a start. Just enough space to breathe, so he could smile again and reply, “More than alright.”

Her eyes lit up. “Good! That’s what I want, too. And I don’t know what you think you could possibly do that would _ruin_ it, but it’s not like I wouldn’t tell you if I wasn’t comfortable. We can keep talking as we go along and make sure we’re both alright. I’m not shy.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” he muttered, happy to make her laugh one more time before they reached a point where her laughter meant disaster. “But I think you know I am. A little bit.”

“Well,” she sighed, slipping out of her shoes and shifting to kneel on the sofa, facing him completely. “Multiple choice, then. No essay questions. Could you manage that?”

She was teasing him now, and he didn’t mind at all. In fact, it helped a little bit. He nodded and grinned, and when she scooted just a little bit closer, he found that it actually wasn’t very difficult at all to move his hands up to her face and cup her soft cheeks.

“And we can still go slow,” she murmured, bumping the very tip of her nose against his. He gave a minuscule nod and enjoyed her pleased little smile before she leaned in so close he had to close his eyes, and then she kissed him. Her hands were on her knees last time he saw them, but now he felt them on his thigh again. When he let his tongue slip against her lips for just a moment, hers came out to meet his, and it was still hot from her tea. He tasted sugar and tannin and something minty. He tried to ignore it, but the thought had grabbed hold of his brain, now, and not vice versa, and the next time she pulled away and right before she moved in again for another kiss, he had to ask.

“You were about to go to bed when I called, weren’t you?”

“What?” she breathed, squinting at him as if he were an incomprehensible sentence in one of those nightmarishly constructed essays she had to read and grade.

“Toothpaste.”

She gave him a curious look and burst into laughter. “No! I was reading when you called! I wasn’t even in bed! The moment you hung up, I brushed my teeth. Would you like me to write you a book report to prove it?”

“Oh. Then how about I just shut up?”

“Might be best for a bit, yeah.”

“Now I feel bad for not brushing mine before I came over.”

“You’re fine. You taste like tea,” she said, pausing to nip at his lower lip, “and you were going to shut up.”

He was in no position to be clever, but she made it so easy sometimes, and he was not a strong enough man to resist a shiny red button when he saw one. “Actually,” he mused, faking a pensive look, “what happened to talking as we went along?”

“Oh my God,” she groaned, grabbing the lapels of his jacket and pulling herself into his lap. Before he knew what had happened, her hands were in his hair and her teeth tugged sharply but playfully at his lip again, and he would have laughed at her frustration had she given him the chance, but then her tongue came smoothing over the spot she’d bitten and the laughter that had been bubbling in his chest vanished without a single trace. Yeah, tannin and sugar and mint. It worked, somehow. His lips weren’t dry anymore. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to taste her tongue or her lips or that sensitive spot on the roof of her mouth most, and then he still needed to get her back for that sharp little nibble, too, but then again - they had all night, didn’t they? All night, and perhaps all morning, and the day after that, if she didn’t shoo him out later tonight. He felt her smirk at a little appreciative noise he’d made and he had sunk his teeth in her bottom lip in retaliation when a sharp, pulling pain just above his ear made him gasp into her mouth. Something was painfully tugging at his hair, and when Belle broke the kiss in shock and tried to pull her hand back, he knew exactly what it was.

“Ow! Darling, darling, hold on,” he hissed, reaching up to grab her wrist before she could give him a lovely bald spot where genetics had spared him. “My hair’s stuck on a button, I think. Don’t pull.”

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry! Hold on, I’ve got it!”

Gold clenched his eyes shut and tried not to jerk away from her as she fiddled with his hair and her sleeve, sending a few more jolts of pain through his scalp. “Have you really? Because it doesn’t - _fuck_! Doesn’t feel like it, darling.”

“Relax, Samson!” she cooed, pausing her rescue attempt to kiss his forehead fondly. “I don’t want to pull out your lovely hair either. _There!_ ”

Gold sighed in relief and let his shoulders drop, loosening his tight grip on her arm. Not too tight, he hoped. Didn’t seem so; she was smiling at him and biting her lip, and he could practically hear the giggles she was trying so hard to keep inside. So he poked her in the side and grinned knowingly when that did unleash her laughter. She reached for his hair again, and Gold laughed low and shook his head, grabbing her wrists gently but firmly. She looked a little confused, so he smiled and undid the button on her cuff. He folded up her sleeve slowly, because her smile had gone a bit shy and dreamy, and he wanted to draw it out. Sensitive wrists, perhaps. He’d have to test out that theory later.

“I do love your hair, you know,” she murmured. He smiled back and began to do the same thing to her other sleeve, folding it up and lightly touching her forearm as he did so, until the cuff rested just below her elbow. “I’m so glad you came.”

“Me too.”

He kissed one wrist, then the other, and then he coaxed her down from his lap so he could guide her down on her sofa. He’d meant to lean down and kiss her immediately, but the sight of her was transfixing, and he stayed hovering over her just to stare and take it all in. Her face was flushed and her pupils blown wide, her rosy lips falling open. “Just in case it wasn’t obvious, you, uh,” she whispered, pausing to swallow and let her tongue flit out over her lips. “You’re really turning me on.”

She wasn’t possible. He went right back to kissing her, anyway, twitching when she moaned and deepened the kiss for him again. He was constantly close to getting hard, but there was always something pulling him back mentally and putting him back to square one. It would build up slow, and she would make a little sound and it would almost blow away the barrier that kept him from relaxing and letting it happen, but always, always just when he was about to let himself go, he would stop himself. Something and then nothing - over and over again, and whatever it was, he couldn’t switch it off. And there wasn’t enough room to kiss her like this with his hands either side of her head to keep from crushing her; his one hand kept sliding off the edge of the sofa, and just keeping steady became nigh on impossible when she slid her hands up his chest and splayed them there, her warm fingers digging into the flesh just hard enough to make him want to bite her lip again.

“Maybe we’d be more comfortable in my bedroom,” she suggested after the fourth time his hand nearly slipped.

He nodded. Maybe that was it. Maybe it would help. You don’t cook in your bathroom either, do you? Although people did have sex in bathrooms. And kitchens. So perhaps the two weren’t comparable at all. God, he needed to stop thinking. He needed to feel.

So he tried to focus on the feeling of Belle’s fingertips brushing lightly against his when she offered her hand to him and he reached back to take it. She guided him out of this room and into what appeared to be her bedroom. She’d clicked off the living room lights and it gave him a strange sense of finality. No going back. Nothing in that room over there. His world was this room, now. His world was now white walls and white sheets, white curtains and a white faux polar bear rug with head and claws and all spread out on the floor at the foot of her bed. It made him smile despite the nerves. Belle squeezed his fingers and let go, leaving him standing there as she closed the door behind them and began to move about.

“Did you shoot that poor fellow yourself?” he asked, nodding towards the rug.

“Strangled it,” she said, touching his shoulder for a moment as she moved past him to go and pull the curtains closed. Great. More white. That last little bit of darkness beyond the window was gone, now, and he felt so incredibly out of place. He was dark, dusty, alien in this white room with his dark suit and his grey shirt. The only bit of color on him had been his tie, but that thing was lying somewhere on his coffee table, being useless, and he was lost in negative space. It was too bright, _far_ too bright, but you don’t ask a woman that gorgeous to turn off the lights. You just don’t - not without being struck by lightning courtesy of the gods of love, or beauty, or lust, or common sense, or all of the above in unison. At least he could still hear the music through the wall, very, very softly, but very much there. Something from outside of this bubble of light. Something to stop him from suffocating in the silence.

“Children’s section in Ikea,” she said, sitting down on the edge of her bed.

“Hm?”

She smiled and patted the empty space next to her. “The bear rug.”

“Oh.”

“I was drunk when I bought it. Still like it, though.”

He sat down next to her and smirked. “You go to Ikea drunk?”

“You don’t?”

He kissed her, because that was still something he could do, and besides; her cheeky grin was begging for it. But it wasn’t too long before she broke the kiss, raised a finger and with wide eyes added, “I don’t want you thinking I drink alone and then go hang out in Ikea. There were three of us.”

“I wasn’t thinking that, but now I’m picturing it. Talking to the stuffed animals, passing out in a children’s play tent. Sounds fun.”

“We should do that some time, you and I.”

“We should.”

If he didn’t fuck up spectacularly tonight, perhaps they could. She leaned over and kissed him again, and he gathered his courage to blindly reach behind her so he could find whatever it was that kept her long, beautiful hair pinned up like that. It was easy to remove even with his eyes closed, and it gave him a little boost of confidence that vanished like a snowflake on his tongue when his fumbling fingers messed it all up. He’d tried to put her hair clip on her night stand but it slipped from his fingers to the floor, clattering.

“It’s alright,” she said softly. She caught his wrist as he was about to go pick up the surprisingly robust tortoiseshell pattern thing, and kissed the back of his hand. “Leave it.”

He wanted to ask her what she wanted him to do, but he knew that would have been ridiculous, so he just sat there, helpless and unmoving until she smiled, took his hands in hers and guided them to the top button of her shirt, and oh. Okay, well, his fingers were too shaky to fiddle with actual buttons, so he was immensely grateful Belle’s shirt had press buttons sewn on. It was easy to pull them apart, and they made a satisfying sound somewhere in between a click and a pop. He went slow, because he wasn’t sure his heart could take it if he were to just see her in her bra all of the sudden. No, he just had to find a little bit of lace, or whatever material she preferred, and -

She wasn’t wearing one.

He couldn’t help but snap his eyes back up to her face.

“I… got dressed in a hurry when you called,” she explained, smiling shyly. It made him feel a little bit better about the complete look of shock on his face.

“Oh. Right. Yes.”

“That’s why my outfit’s a mess.”

“It’s not a mess. It’s - ”

She lunged and kissed the words right off his lips, which was good, because he wasn’t sure how he was going to finish that sentence, anyway. She kept close and kissed him in between every button popped, until he reached the very last one. And then he looked. She was gorgeous, but he couldn’t bring himself to push the fabric from her shoulders completely just yet. He stared and tried to find the words to tell her just how beautiful she was, but then she took his hands and placed them right over her breasts, and there was no chance of that happening anymore. Belle draped her arms over his shoulders, let her fingers play with the hair at the back of his neck and simply smiled. And so he touched her, and God, she was as soft as she looked, and it was mesmerizing how sensitive she was. He drew goosebumps where his fingertips ghosted over her curves, a small when he’d found somewhere sensitive to touch, her breath catching in her throat when her nipples hardened under his touch. He could do this all night. Just this. This was perfect.

“Can I take off your shirt?”

“Yeah.”

Nerve-wracking, it was, to sit there and let her bare his tired old body to her button by button, revealing more and more of the skin he hadn’t felt comfortable in in years. She didn’t look horrified. Of course she didn’t. She was too nice a person for that. But then when she looked up from where her fingers had just tackled the last button and gave him the hint of a smile, he saw a familiar look that soothed his nerves somewhat. It was the look she gave him after they kissed in his classroom. Pupils the size of saucers even though the light was hitting her beautiful face almost head-on, her lips parted for her breaths to pass through - little puffs of black tea warmth he wanted to feel against his bare skin more than he wanted anything else in the world, then. Her warm hands travelled down his chest, and she trailed her fingertips back up. It made him shiver.

“You’re handsome.”

“You’re beautiful.”

She grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down on the bed (which was a teensy bit creakier than he’d hoped), crawling over him with her smiling lip caught between her teeth. He toed off his shoes and scooted up a little bit, and she followed. Just to make sure he wouldn’t drag them both off her bed the way he almost did when they were still kissing on her sofa, that was all, although he had no doubt that in her mind, it looked a little bit as if he was trying to get away from her. That was why he pulled her face down to his and kissed her hard, hoping he could make her feel as wanted as she was that way, because some parts of his anatomy didn’t seem to want to cooperate fully on that task. Gold was rather pleased he hadn’t taken her shirt off entirely, now, because when he ran his hands up and down the bare expanse of her back, it felt infinitely more snug there under the warm flannel. God, and when she came down on him and pushed her body against his, she was so warm against his bare chest, all softness except where she wasn’t, and it gave him goosebumps.

But that was it. She wriggled her hips not-so-subtly just once, and he knew she’d noticed. Fuck.

“Sorry,” he murmured, clenching his eyes shut so he wouldn’t see the disappointment in her eyes. She rolled off of him, and for a terrifying moment, he thought that that was it. She was through with him. It couldn’t work. It could never work if he couldn’t get over this ridiculous thing of his. But she didn’t leave. She stayed close. He felt her hair tickling his shoulder, and when he opened his eyes and turned his head to see, she was smiling kindly.

“Nerves?”

“Must be. Sorry, love.”

“That’s alright. I meant what I said earlier. I’m just glad you’re here.”

Her eyes were flitting over his face in that way they did when she was worried about him.

“It’s not a physical problem, and it’s not you,” he assured her.

She nodded and gave him another kind smile. “I know. It’s alright.” She kissed his lips as soft as a feather. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

She got off the bed, and on her way out of the room, she clicked on the lamp on her bedside table, and another one on the desk pushed up against the wall on the other side of the room, and he couldn’t believe she was making the room even brighter then it already was. But then she shot him a knowing smile over her shoulder and turned off the overhead light just as she disappeared into her living room, and God, that was better. So much better. The lampshades made the light a kinder shade of orange, and there was shadow in the room, now. He’d missed that. He scooted up to lie back against her kingdom of pillows at the head of the bed and listened to her move about in her living room. It didn’t take too long for her to come back into the room carrying two of the little candle holders he’d seen scattered on her coffee table. She put one on her dresser, and the other one on the nightstand without a lamp.

“I like it,” he said, just to pierce the silence. Belle simply smiled and left again, and he wondered what she could possibly still be up to. More candles, perhaps? Ah, no. A blanket. He’d spotted it folded on a chair by the window, earlier. A cozy looking patchwork thing that brought a little bit of color to the place. She had a mischievous grin on her face as she approached the bed, and he narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but he didn’t see it coming at all. The blanket, that was; flying over his head as she giggled.

“Hey!” he cried. He wanted to drag her back into bed and tickle her or something, but when he finally got himself out from under the blanket, he only just caught a glimpse of her, leaving the room yet again.

“What on earth are you up to?”

“Almost done!”

 _Pop_. The sound of a bottle being opened. Wine? Yes, wine. She walked back in with two glasses of red, humming a little tune under her breath.

“Red wine in your white room on your white bed?” he asked as she handed him his glass and put hers on the nightstand. Belle snorted and clicked the light back off in the other room, but kept the door cracked open. That was nice, actually. Her music was still playing, and it helped with those little splashes of silence in between.

She settled on the bed, right next to him and nudged the hand that was holding his glass closer to his lips. “Red wine in your mouth.” She scooted close, pulled the blanket over their legs, gave him another brilliant smile, then set to work on her own glass. With kinder lights and under the comforting softness of her patchwork blanket, Gold felt the fears begin to melt away. The wine was nice, too. A sip or two gave him the illusion that it was working and loosening his muscles already. A few sips more and it actually would, but he wanted to hold her, most of all, so he put his glass on the nightstand and draped his arm over her shoulder. She followed suit and nestled herself against his side. Gold pulled her closer, and with a content little sigh, Belle dropped her head on his chest, and yes, that was it. That was what he’d been needing for months, now. The weight of her pretty little head on his chest was the most comforting thing of all. He couldn’t imagine ever being without that again.

“You’re not fretting, are you?” she asked. Her breath was hot on his chest, and no; he really couldn’t do without her anymore. “Cause we’ll get there.”

“I’m not fretting. You’ve been too kind and understanding for me to be fretting.” He kissed the top of her head and smiled when he felt her lips against the bare skin of his chest. A kiss in return.

“I was nervous, too.”

“You never seemed nervous. Excited, perhaps, but…”

“I hid it.”

“Why?”

“Because you were panicking enough for two, that’s why,” she teased, smirking against his chest. “Someone had to calm their tits, y’know.”

Gold laughed a silent laugh and sighed. “Yeah. True. I’m grateful for that, you know. I don’t know why you bothered with me at all.”

“Because I like you!” she said, climbing out of his half embrace to fold her arms on his chest and rest her head on them. She had her brow furrowed in concern, and that lower lip of hers was jutting out again. “I’ve _always_ liked you. From the moment I saw you glaring at your book in the library - looking stupendously sexy, I might add - I thought to myself, ‘Yup. That one. I want that one.’”

“Come on,” he laughed, shaking his head.

“Seriously! And then when we actually met for real, you were such a ridiculous grump at first. You were trying to scare me off, weren’t you?”

“Not quite. Keep you at a distance, maybe.”

“Well, whatever it was,” she said, smirking, “it backfired. Cause you know what I wanna do when I see a no entry sign? I want to scale the fence and have a look.”

He smiled, picturing her throwing her heels over a fence and then climbing over afterwards. Typical.

“And then I liked what I saw when I did.”

Gold reached over and poked the tip of her nose, making her go cross-eyed for a second. “If anyone should have been scaling any fences, it’s me. I’m not worth chasing the way you chased me, sweetheart. I’m glad you did.”

Her smile fell away and she sighed a sigh so deep Gold wondered what he’d said wrong. “I don’t think you realize, but you’re really negative about yourself sometimes,” she explained. “And I don’t mind telling you you’re wrong, but…”

Another sigh. A pinprick to his heart. She was right. He was an idiot, but he wasn’t going to say that out loud anymore. “But it’s not your job,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “And you’ve done so much already. And I should grow up.”

“I wouldn’t have put it that way exactly,” she murmured, “but I would love it if you insulted my taste in men a little less often.”

Well. He hadn’t looked at it like that. Gold laughed and felt her shake in his arms, laughing along silently. “I haven’t looked at it that way. I can do that. Well, I can try, and you can just outright tell me to shut my face if I slip up.”

“Don’t think I won’t,” she giggled, lifting herself up just enough so she could kiss his lips and seal the deal. When she fell down next to him, he slipped his arm under her head for her to use as a pillow. 

“This is nice. Really nice. This is actually really close to how I pictured it sometimes.”

“Pictured it?”

“Yeah! I don’t know what your bedroom looks like, so I just pictured your guest room. The one I slept in.”

“Okay,” he said, a mite curious as to the direction in which she was heading with this.

“There’s not really a plot, or anything,” she said, her voice a little deeper. “You just lead me up to your room, and we fall down on the bed and just kiss and touch each other for ages. I pictured that a lot.”

Oh. _That_ direction. He licked his dry lips and turned his head to gaze at the impossible creature lying next to him. She was staring up at the ceiling with a distant smile as if she was summoning the images right now.

“But then I also - Oh. Do you mind if I talk about this?” she asked, crinkling her nose and giving him a questioning look.

Gold almost laughed. Who would? “Not at all.”

“No?” Her grin was positively devilish. It was making him feel warmer again, like the wine would have done had he finished his glass, but even warmer, now. “I’ll tell you about the other one, then.”

“Oh?”

“I imagined you finally getting the bloody hint and just… I don’t know. Snapping? Yeah. Snapping. You snapped, and you stormed into my class, locking the door behind you, barricading it with a desk for good measure and you just…”

It was surprisingly difficult to speak all of the sudden, but every cell in his body demanded to hear the end of that sentence, so he growled a deep, dry, “Just what?”

She bit her lip and then grinned, quirking an eyebrow to indicate that she’d picked up on his little moodswing. “Use your imagination.”

He snorted and looked up at the ceiling, just to get away from her piercing stare for just a moment. “Well, I wouldn’t have done that. That would be wildly unprofessional and irresponsible. I mean, not during the day, at least.”

What was he saying, here? He’d be up for it at night?

“I know!” she mewed. “But a girl gets imaginative, you know? There’s a little alcove in my classroom. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

He nodded. That was where they used to have to store the giant televisions on those wheeled iron contraptions before the school got their computers and projectors. A headache each time, but Gold had stubbornly and rather stupidly demanded they kept the bloody things out of his classroom and let him use the ten ton television on rusty wheels and the unreliable VCR in peace for at least three months before he finally relented.

Yes. That spot would do perfectly for what he thought she had in mind.

“Someone looking in from outside wouldn’t have been able to see us, there, so that’s where I imagined you dragged me to. Cause you were too impatient to close the curtains.”

“I definitely would have at least closed the curtains,” he said with a serious nod, furrowing his brow.

“Yeah, but in this fantasy, I’d been winding you up all day.”

The fact that she used the word fantasy sent a tingle from the base of his skull, all the way down his spine, and right down to his cock. “Oh, I see. I was worked up,” he muttered, bringing a hand up to the back of her neck for his fingers to tangle in her soft hair.

“Positively predatory,” breathed Belle, arching into his touch. “And we just did it right there.”

“That does sound quite nice.” Not sure how that would work with his ankle, but well.

“Doesn’t it? That one was _very_ effective.”

“Oh, God.”

“That featured prominently in the dialogue, yes.”

“Belle? Did you really -”

“Touch myself and think about you?” she cut in, thankfully. “Yes. You?”

“Of course,” he murmured, looking away again. He wouldn’t have admitted to that if she hadn’t asked, but then again, she must have known. She must have looked in the mirror at some point in her life. She must know the effect she had on people, surely, and above all, she knew he wouldn’t be above that. Must have done.

“Well, go on! Tell me!” she giggled, poking him in the side and making him want to squirm away. He pulled her closer instead and stilled her roving hand that way. “It’s only fair!”

“God, Belle,” he laughed, throwing his free arm over his eyes. He felt her body shake as she laughed in silence. “It’s ridiculous.”

“It can hardly be more stupid than the idea of you having the nerve to fuck me in my classroom.”

Well, if he wasn’t getting hard before… That word sounded really nice coming from her lips. Was there more where that came from, he wondered?

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s up there.”

“Well now I _have_ to know.”

“Look,” he sighed, turning on his side to face her. “It’s incredibly dumb, but you just kept going on about that bike shed, love!”

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped. “We fuck in the bike shed? The school bike shed?”

He groaned and hid his face behind his hand, shaking his head. “No! Well, sort of. And it was just _a_ bike shed. Any bike shed. Maybe my old school. I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, we ‘sort of’ fuck?” she laughed.

Gold sighed and let her pry his hand from his burning face. She was grinning like mad and her cheeks were red, and everything was working perfectly fucking fine, all of the sudden. Took him long enough. He bit his lip and shook his head, forcing himself to keep up her stare so that she might read his meaning in his eyes, and oddly enough, it worked, because her eyes got even wider, and she cried out, “I wank you off in the bike shed?”

He couldn’t speak; just laugh and nod, and he was incredibly relieved she was laughing, too.

“I’d have been game, you know. Not at school, of course, and the pier was probably too risky, too, but seriously. Adventurous hand jobs are totally doable, as fantasies go,” she teased.

Gold wasn’t so sure whether she was joking or not. “I may have pictured it, but I wouldn’t have been comfortable doing it.”

She sighed and showed a wistful smile. “When are you ever comfortable, though?”

Those words hit hard, just hard enough to wipe the embarrassed grin from his face. She was still smiling at him, and she reached over to tap her finger against the very tip of his nose, once, twice, three times. She was beautiful. He was head over heels for her. She wanted him, and he was getting hard. What was he waiting for?

“I am now,” he said, suddenly finding it surprisingly easy to put a hand on the back of her thigh and slide it up to follow the soft curve under her skirt. Warm skin, soft flesh. Her eyes went wide, and then suddenly narrow as she shifted a little bit closer to him with a slow smile, nodding her approval before capturing his lips. As they kissed, he let his fingers ghost over the back of her thigh, because she seemed to like that. She kept breaking their kiss for tiny little gasps, hot against his wet lips, and he wasn’t sure whether she was just hypersensitive or it was muscle memory taking over, telling him exactly where to touch. Didn’t matter. She writhed a little, mewled and murmured a plea for him to move his bloody hand already, and when he did - how could he not? - the barriers broke, because beyond her lace panties he found her hot and wet. She was undeniably aroused, and he could barely believe it, but he _had_ to. Just a few teasing touches had her writhing on his hand and moaning into his neck as if he was actually any good at this. Well, he had been. He used to be. But it had been so incredibly, stupidly long.

“Feels good,” she murmured, her lips moving against his skin. She breathed a shaky little sound against his neck, then kissed him there and hitched a leg over his, brushing against his cock, which was actually cooperating now. He buried his hand in the softness of her hair and guided her lips to where he could kiss them again. He couldn’t touch her the way he had been with her sprawled over him like that, so he just let his hands roam wherever, fisting the fabric of her skirt and dragging it up, sliding under her shirt and helping her shrug it off. Her blanket was tangled at their feet, but she still managed to make short work of his belt and trousers, and as he shrugged off his own shirt and flung it off the bed, a small voice in the back of his head remarked that this sure had gone from zero to _fucking hell_ real quick for an aging high school history teacher who'd been going on about going slow. No idea what she’d done with his boxers, or his trousers, or his socks, or her skirt, or her panties, for that matter. She was a veritable clothes-thieving whirlwind, and he needed to feel her skin against his right that instant. He sat up to grab her by the waist and guide her down on the mattress, wanting to feel her body underneath his more than anything. Her breasts against his chest again, his thigh in between hers. She moaned, he twitched, her hands found his hair and buried themselves there, her foot was sliding up and down his calf, and when she pushed her hips up, he had to pull away, because no, he wouldn’t be able to last like that. He was rock hard and wound up, and the brakes were dangerously close to coming off, especially with the little sounds she was making. When she reached in between their bodies and her hand wrapped around him, he felt it everywhere, like an electric charge prickling every inch of his skin. Gold pulled away, shaking his head, gasping. “Belle, darling. I’m too close.”

“That’s alright,” she breathed, leaving the lightest of kisses on his cheek, her fingers tangling in his hair. “I just want you to feel good.”

“Well… I know it’s ambitious to say the least, but I want to make you come.”

“With you inside of me, you mean?” she asked him, cradling his face gently.

No, she wasn’t shy. He nodded.

“Don’t worry about that for now,” said Belle, pulling him down for brief kiss on his lips. “We’ll have time for that. Besides, I was really close earlier. You’ll make me come, after.”

Not shy at all. She reached into a drawer of her night stand and took out a condom, and he was just ever so glad she hadn’t asked him if he’d brought one, because he was an idiot and he hadn’t. She fell back against the pillows, spread her legs for him to settle in between her soft, warm thighs, and she watched him as he tried not to fumble with the condom. It was difficult because he couldn’t keep his eyes from her mouth. Her tongue had flicked out over her lip and then she bit it, and oh fuck, how was he ever supposed to last when he had this goddess staring up at him like that?

As if she could read his mind, she told him, “Don’t worry about making me come. I’d love to just watch you.”

He could only nod. Once. Weakly. There was no way he was going to last long enough to make her come tonight. Not like that. She was ready for him, and she was perfect and hot, and every inch of his body was begging to be plastered against hers, but he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t crush her. She was so small and precious, and now her hands were on his chest, and he was one hundred percent sure they belonged there and had always belonged there, and everything in his life and that of hers had been leading up to _them_. He was lost. Hopelessly lost. That’s why when she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down on top of her, he let her. All soft hair and warm sweat, she pushed her nose against his neck, kissed the sensitive skin there and whispered, “Don’t hold back.” He watched her and marveled at her disheveled beauty until that blue and those lips became too mesmerizing and he had to hide his face in her neck as he fucked her. As hard as he liked, she said, and he wasn’t sure if she’d meant for her words to have that effect, but he came as soon as she said them - so hard he couldn’t even make a sound as his teeth scraped at her shoulder. Her arms came wrapping around him as tight as her lovely legs were. It felt as if she was trying to pull him even deeper even though there was no physical way he could get any closer to her. Oh, but he would keep trying, though. He doubted he could ever stop trying to get closer to the woman underneath him. Was he crushing her? God, he hoped he wasn’t crushing her, because he didn’t want to move an inch. She petted his hair and kissed the only bits of him she could reach, and when she gently pushed him off of her, she was quick to take the condom and take care of it. There was a strategically placed waste basket near her nightstand, so she didn’t have to go very far, but his dumb, post-orgasm brain couldn’t stand to be without her touch, so when she came back, he grabbed her by the waist, pulled her close and rolled them over until he was hovering over her again.

She needed to come. He hadn’t made her come. “Belle…”

“Don’t worry,” she said, smiling. She took his hand, kissed it, then guided it down between her legs where she was still unbelievably wet and hot, and Gold did everything he remembered had made her moan before. It didn’t take very long to have her on the verge again, and he wished he hadn’t stopped when he first touched her, earlier. He could have made her come, then. She was beautiful. Impossibly beautiful. Panting, gasping, smiling when she caught his reverent stare. To make her shake like that, dig her fingers into his shoulders like that, to have her make those urgent little sounds and push distracted open mouthed kisses to his neck like that almost made him feel as if he could one day be worthy of her. So he did it again. She didn’t tell him to stop, so he didn’t. He was going to take his time with that one, but then she _begged_ and bucked and he could deny her nothing at all. Two. Not enough. He gave her a moment to come down and reveled in her pleased, proud smile, and then he worked her up all over again until she came a final and third time with her teeth sinking in his shoulder, her thighs damn near crushing his hand between them. He wanted to make her come one more time, but she laughed and hissed and shook her head as she yanked his hand away. Gold was pretty sure she nearly broke his skin when she bit him during the last one, so he supposed he could live with three. She’d seriously nearly crushed the bones in his hand. She was stronger than she looked.

And stranger. Panting, she brought his hand up to her mouth and cleaned up his fingers as if it didn’t occur to her that that might be a bit of an odd thing to do. And of course it was erotic; she was naked and disheveled and blushing and panting and gorgeous beyond belief, but there was something sweet about it, above all. A simple act of grooming. Nothing more, nothing less. (But bloody hell, a man half his age would have gotten hard again at the mere thought.)

“You’re adorable,” she laughed, squeezing his hand before letting go. “You look so proud. And you should be!”

He rolled his eyes but felt his face heating up, and he gathered her naked body to his in the hopes that she wouldn’t notice the fact that she was right; he couldn’t wipe the pleased smile from his face.

“You weren’t thinking of going home, right?” she murmured, wriggling out of his embrace to sit up on the bed.

“Course not.”

“Good! I’ll be right back. Bathroom. Make yourself comfortable.”

“Alright.”

Belle walked out of her room completely naked and gave him ample opportunity to stare at her lovely bum on her way out, which was very much appreciated, because he’d been a little too busy to really do much staring before. When she was out of sight, he got up to find his underwear, and then slipped under the covers. He waited. He heard water run. The sound of her bare feet on her living room floor made him smile, and then suddenly there she was, in a t-shirt and nothing else (that he could see), and she was biting her lip and smiling as if she had a secret. It was only when she crawled under the covers with him and kissed him softly on the lips that Gold realized with an involuntary gasp that that was the t-shirt he’d let her borrow the night they got pissed and she stayed over. His t-shirt. Belle French, in his t-shirt.

He was staring. His mouth had dropped open. Gold shook his head to get rid of the dumb look of shock, put on a smirk and teased, “I’ve been looking for that,” making her giggle.

“I really did forget to bring it with me a few times, but then I just kept it,” she explained, smiling shyly, not quite meeting his gaze. “I know it’s pathetic, but it smells like you. Your fabric softener, maybe, I don’t know.” She shrugged, tugged at the collar of the t-shirt a bit absently, and there was that pout again. Oh, good God. He was hers. He was so completely and irrevocably hers, and when she wriggled closer under the covers and threw an arm over his chest, hugging herself close, Gold wondered how he was ever going to let her go if she tired of him. If he fucked up somehow. If someone better came along. “Keep it,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her and burying his nose in her soft hair.

“I’d offer you one of mine in return, but it’d be a tight fit.”

“But totally doable, as fantasies go,” he joked. “I’d be game.”

If he could just hold her all of the time, and if he could just make her giggle and come whenever she wanted to, and if that were the only things he could do for the rest of his existence, he knew that he would be a deliriously happy man. Her music was still playing softly in the other room. In between two songs, Gold became aware of a soft tapping sound on her bedroom window. Rain.

“Are you sleepy?” she asked him after a while.

His mind was whirring. His heart was singing. He couldn’t stop smiling if he tried. “Not really.”

“Me neither. D’you want to just stay here and talk?”

He’d fallen in love with a woman who wanted him in her bed.

“I’d like that.”

Why would he want to sleep?


	11. Knowing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle and Gold don't get an awful lot of sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Don't read the summary and get your hopes up. I know what you're thinking.)
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> I'm sorry about the delay. Things came up. The next chapter shouldn't take as long, but we're nearing the end.
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> I’ve seen you say the nicest things about this little story elsewhere, and I appreciate it more than you'll ever know. Please know that you're all responsible for me sitting here blushing and smiling stupidly the past few days. Thank you.
> 
> And a special thank you to the super talented [Kamden](http://kamdensl.tumblr.com) for [this gorgeous piece of art that you should all go and stare at for as long as I have](http://kamdensl.tumblr.com/post/108954180031/tea-fanfiction-recommendation-1-remedial-french), and the ridiculously kind words that accompany it. You're awesome. Thank you.

With no clock hanging on her bedroom wall, no alarm on her bedside table, with the curtains drawn and beyond that, heavy rainclouds covering the town like a thick blanket, seconds passed slow and blurred together. If the rain didn’t let up, the sun wouldn’t even peep through the thin gap between the curtains when it rose, but sunrise felt so far away. Belle rested her head on his shoulder, her arm thrown over his chest. They would talk, they’d said, but they hadn’t done much of that. He only knew for sure she wasn’t asleep because her fingers drew faint patterns on his shoulder, and he felt her eyelashes tickle his skin when she blinked. When she finally did speak, she spoke softly, but with a touch of roughness to her voice. Textured and deeper than usual. Closer than he’d ever heard it before.

“Do you have somewhere you need to be tomorrow?”

“No. You?”

“Cancelled it after you called.”

“Time to brush your teeth and cancel a prior engagement, but no time to put on a bra?”

“Hey!” She squeezed his shoulder playfully and squirmed up and out of his arms to shoot him a stern look. “I also tidied up and cleaned the dishes in the sink, alright?”

“That’s why I asked you if you needed time, you know,” he said, smiling.

She relaxed into his embrace again, softened to the warm bundle she’d been before he’d riled her up, and with her lips against his skin murmured, “I know. But I missed you.”

He pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head.

“And I was really excited,” she added, giggling when his own laughter made her head shake on his chest.

And then what was left was the sound of the rain hitting the window and her muffled music in the other room. Her hair was very soft, and it had taken him no time at all to fall in love with the simple act of running his fingers through it. The smell of her shampoo was faint. Stronger was the scent of her perfume, a touch of sweat, a hint of wine. He had all of her in his arms, his nose full of her, her skin stuck to his. Every atom of her being was there with him in her bed, but still it didn’t feel like it was enough. The people she’d met, the places she’d been, the things she’d done, the thoughts she’d never put into words were all beyond his grasp, and he _knew_ it was very greedy to want to study every one of her facets like a diamond, to hold her up to the light and peer at her until she revealed all of her stories and secrets, but the desire to know her was a strong, hollow ache in his belly - something very close to hunger, and difficult to ignore.

“I don’t know nearly enough about you.”

There. Already the hollow ache shrank just a little bit with that admission. Belle lifted her head and gave him a look as if he’d said something worryingly stupid. “You know plenty.”

“I don’t know anything about your life before you started teaching here. I don’t know anything about your family.”

“You met my dad!”

He cringed at the memory, shaking his head. “I didn’t realize at the time. Doesn’t count.”

She shifted and moved away from him a little bit to settle on her pillow, resting her head on her folded arms and peering at him through half-lidded eyes. Although he could see her face better this way, he missed the warmth of her. When she reached out and put a hand on his cheek, it was alright again. They weren’t nearly as close as before, but this was lovely, too. “Why don’t you tell me what you already know.”

Her hand moved from his cheek into his hair, fingers sliding through, nails scraping ever so faintly against his scalp. He knew she was listening, but she looked a little dreamy. She seemed fascinated just coiling his hair gently around her fingers, and it made him smile.

“I know you liked to play pirates, and you were a lonely child,” he said.

“I wasn’t lonely. I was just alone.”

That hardly sounded any better, and he distinctly remembered her using the word ‘lonely’ to describe herself, but he loved the look of her in that moment, and he was afraid that arguing - however playfully - would draw her out of her strange little trance as she played with his hair, and he couldn’t have that, now, could he? “I know you take two sugars in your tea. Your father owns the only flower shop in town. You’re ambivalent towards magic realism.”

“How d’you figure that?” she mewled with her lips slowly twisting into a grin, her eyes twinkling with laughter. “The magic realism thing, I mean.”

“You make faces when you read,” he replied.

She tore her eyes away from her fingers and his hair in between them to quirk an eyebrow at him. “You were watching?”

He nodded gravely, secretly enjoying the way she had to fight down a smile at that revelation. “Sometimes I’d recognize a title and I’d watch to see what you made of it,” he explained. “And sometimes you looked so confused I figured someone must have turned into a horse with no explanation.”

She giggled and nodded. “Something like that, yeah. Probably.”

He smiled but stayed silent, knowing that she would catch on soon enough. In the time it took her to realize he’d run out of little facts and tidbits already, Gold committed her cute, absent smile to memory. It couldn’t have taken her very long to realize that nothing else was coming, but in this strange timeless bubble they were in, it did feel that way.

“That’s not all you know about me,” she said after a long while, her voice deep and unbelieving, playfully batting at a lock of his hair. And when she looked at him then, he saw a minute change come over her, leaving her looking a little lost. She knew, now. She felt it too. “It doesn’t feel like that’s all you know about me. I feel like you know everything.”

“Yeah.”

He knew that that was impossible - ridiculous, even - but he wanted to agree. What it was was a feeling. Familiarity and comfort. It was chemical. Precious, though. Rare beyond comprehension, and more important to him than anything he could think of in that moment. But if he knew her, he only knew her like a word on the tip of his tongue. Like a familiar song echoing out in a corridor. A certain color, a warm afternoon light that escaped description. He had drunk her down whole and he was still parched.

“What do you want to know?” she said softly.

If he could pour her into little stories and facts, it would help. Words were building blocks. They would give him something to hold on to when he felt like he was drowning in her.

“Everything. Anything. Doesn’t matter.”

“Well, did you know I’m thirty?”

He smiled and shook his head. That was good. That was a start. Belle French, thirty years old, gorgeous and charming beyond words, liked books and sex, drank tea and fancied him for some reason.

“And I moved here with my father when I was seventeen.”

“Your mother?”

“She passed away. Before that. Don’t have any siblings, either.”

He caught the hand that was still playing with his hair and brought it up for a kiss. Belle French, all alone with her father in a strange land. He didn’t know whether to ask her about her mother or not. If he stayed silent, she could decide for herself. Her smile was entirely for his benefit, he knew. She squeezed his hand and stole it right back to play with his hair again. A few more seconds of silence, a chill down his spine when her eyes strayed to his lips and the very tip of her tongue came out to wet hers, and then she spoke again.

“I didn’t do that well in school, mostly. Until uni. I did pretty awesome then.”

“Did you have fun?”

“It was alright,” she sighed, smiling. “Didn’t make as many friends as I thought I would, and the boys were awful.” She crinkled her nose in mock disgust, and Gold couldn’t help but laugh.

“What about the professors?” he dared tease, deepening his voice and quirking an eyebrow.

She caught on immediately (he could tell by the little twitch at the corner of her mouth as she tried not to grin) but put on an innocent look and asked him, “Are you implying something?”

“Just wondering if there’s a pattern, dear, that’s all. There was a high school teacher, if I recall correctly.”

“Shut up!” she laughed. “I was fifteen and a complete idiot! You’re not a teacher crush. Doesn’t count now that I’m a teacher myself.”

“What am I, then?”

“A regular sexual conquest,” she joked, throwing herself over his chest and burying her face in the crook of his neck. She weighed next to nothing but he pretended to be crushed, groaning and tickling her sides until she squealed and giggled and squirmed off of him again, settling on her belly on her side of the bed.

“Tell me more. Anything.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling, her face still flushed, her eyes still full of laughter. “I wanted to teach English because I loved the thought of being paid to go on about something I love. I love watching terrible movies, and you’re going to have to suffer through them with me, but my commentary is golden, I promise.”

He grinned. Belle French, made a living loving language, had terrible taste in cinema, talked through movie nights. He wanted to kiss her terribly, but he wanted to hear more, too.

“Keep going.”

She sighed. “I like red wine, and I like it when thunderstorms get really loud. Do you think we’ll get one tonight?”

She twisted her head around to look at the window, and Gold looked over, too. Waste of time, of course. She’d closed the curtains earlier. The rain was still tapping on the windowpane, but he’d checked the weather that morning and there had been no mention of anything more than this steady drizzle.

“I don’t think so,” he said, sliding a hand against her cheek, thumb brushing against her soft skin until she turned back to face him. Her hair tickled the back of his hand. It reminded him of the curious but undeniable fact that he could just slide his fingers in her hair and play with it, now. It was soft, and warmer near her nape. Gently pressing his fingers into the flesh there, her smile turned into a lopsided grin, and she arched her neck just a little bit, her eyes narrowing. Good spot, that, was it? He made a mental note of it. “Carry on,” he murmured.

“I smuggled adult romance novels out of the library when I was too young to check them out.”

“Oh God,” he half-laughed, half-groaned. She bit her grinning lip and shrugged, but he could see her cheeks tinting a little redder.

“I like it when you tilt your head back and you do that thing where one corner of your mouth sort of curls up slow. Whenever you do it, I’m like ‘Oh, so that’s what an erection must feel like.’”

“Belle!” he chuckled, burying his stupid, embarrassed and proud grin in his pillow, clenching his eyes firmly shut. How was she still making his stomach flutter like that?

“What _does_ that feel like, actually?” she lilted, wriggling closer until he could feel the heat of her breath on his cheek. Oh, yes, he was irrevocably head over heels for her. He would kill for her. Perhaps even watch those terrible movies she liked with her. He turned his head and opened one eye to see her smirking.

“We were talking about you,” he growled.

“Well, this is really difficult,” she whined, “and I’m getting sleepy.”

So was he. His eyes were beginning to water, and he’d been fighting back yawns for a while, now. “Just one more.”

Belle stared at him for a moment, trying to look stern and failing. “Alright,” she said, but then she moved away, out from under the covers, out of her bed.

“Where are you going?”

“Do you sleep with the lights on, then?”

“Oh.”

In his white t-shirt she’d claimed for a nightie, Belle moved lightly around the room, blowing out candles, clicking off the lamp on her desk. She’d keep the one on her bedside table for last, he imagined. When she left the bedroom to go and turn off the music in the other room, Gold had half a mind to call after her and remind her that she owed him another little fact, but he snapped his mouth shut again when he realized that if a balance was being kept between them of debts owed, he was still decidedly in the red. Belle could just waltz into his home and take everything he owned, and he would still owe her after he was left with an empty house. So he waited, lying back against her comfortable pillows, listening to her quiet little footsteps in the other room, trying desperately not to over-think. He tended to do that when she wasn’t stuck to him like glue and smiling at him like he was the best thing she’d ever seen, he’d recently discovered.

And there she was again, padding over to the bed with a sleepy smile, her arms stretched up over her head and her eyes narrowing like a cat getting ready for her nap. “One more thing, right?” she said, pulling the curtains open just a little bit, letting in a touch of orange light from the streetlight just outside her building. Gold nodded and watched at she finally crawled back into bed, turning off the bedside lamp as she did so. He couldn’t see her while his tired old eyes adjusted to the dark, but he heard her move and settle, fabric rustling, a soft sigh escaping her lips. He turned on his side and thought he saw her wriggle closer.

“I don’t like the dark. Complete dark, I mean.”

“What, like this?”

“Nah,” she said. She was closer now, and her voice deeper and softer - almost a whisper. “This is fine. I mean pitch black darkness, like your eyes are closed, but they’re not. Like there’s nothing at all.”

“That’s not strange.”

“No?”

“No. I was expecting something scandalous, to be honest.”

It wasn’t much of a giggle; more of a half-amused, half-indignant huff. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, but that’s all you’re getting,” she said, scooting a little closer still. “A little mystery is a good thing.”

He didn’t want to close his eyes. He wanted to lie there and smile back at her until the sun rose. Her eyes were moving over his face slowly, and it was a stare that would have terrified him before tonight. Now he just wondered what she was thinking. Especially when that smile of hers widened into a grin.

“Your eyes are so dark right now,” she whispered. “They’re gorgeous.”

Oh, yes, definitely too soon to tell her he loved her, but then again, it couldn’t possibly be a surprise to her, could it? Surely she knew. Surely she realized that her looks and her words couldn’t have had any other effect on him. She knew what she’d done. And every time the words climbed up his throat and burned hot in his mouth, he had to swallow them back down and come up with something meaningless, harmless instead. Well, not anymore; he would just say nothing this time. He’d run out of words. So with a smile he suspected she could read like an open book, he leaned over and kissed her soft lips good night. Her fingers found his hair again while they kissed, combing through and melting him completely. She nestled herself against him, and he pulled the covers up over her shoulders. It didn’t take very long for her breaths to slow, and Gold followed her into sleep.

…

He had no idea what time it was when he woke up with his mouth dry and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and it took him a moment to remember where he even was, but then he cracked his eyes open, saw her pale face on the pillow next to his and remembered. Belle. Curled up and asleep, just close enough for him to feel the warmth radiate from her. Gold smiled. He usually fell asleep lying on his stomach, but he was still in the same position he fell asleep in - on his side, facing her. When he moved his hand just a bit, he felt and heard her fingers slip from his and tap the mattress as they fell. He didn’t remember falling asleep with their hands touching. He hadn’t even felt the weight of her fingers. When he felt her fingers slip, his heart nearly stopped in his chest. He held his breath and stayed perfectly still for a tense moment, praying she wouldn’t wake up. She didn’t. Not a peep.

Quiet as he could, Gold got out of bed and walked out of the room. He really didn’t want to wake her. He wouldn’t mind if she woke, of course. If she woke, they could talk and fall asleep together again, but it would be selfish to wake her, and they would have all day tomorrow. So: Quiet as a considerably oversized mouse, Gold went about his business, squinting and blinking in the darkness of her kitchen. He didn’t know where she kept her glasses, and opening and closing her cupboards all willy nilly would surely rouse her, so he took his rinsed out mug out of the sink and used that. The pipes were mercifully quiet. The building around them seemed asleep. He couldn’t hear a soul. It must have been late, but he couldn’t really have known; if there was a clock in this room, it wasn’t a digital one. No red or blue light screaming the hour. Couldn’t even hear a ticking sound. How was she never late to anything?

He gulped down the cool tap water and put the empty mug back in the sink in slow motion, careful not to bump it into hers or drop it too suddenly. For a moment, Gold thought he heard a soft sound coming from the bedroom, but it didn’t happen again, and he told himself he’d just imagined it. Or maybe she’d just moved in her sleep. Either way, he still had to be quiet. Not quite on his toes, Gold made his way back to her bedroom, back to her bed, her warmth, her sleepy sounds, and when he pushed the door back open, he froze in place.

She was awake. She’d turned on the lamp on her bedside table and was sitting upright, knees drawn up, eyes wide open, and when she spotted him and their eyes met, her parted lips twisted into a soft, “Oh.”

He couldn’t move for some reason.

“Did you need the bathroom?” she asked with a strangely shaky sigh and a quick smile.

Gold shook his head. “Water,” he explained quietly. “I was thirsty.” That smile of hers hadn’t convinced him one bit, but it thawed his joints and allowed him to move towards the bed. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah.”

He slipped back under the covers, sitting up against the pillows. Worry creasing his brow, he studied her face. Belle looked tired. She was trying to smile, but her eyebrows were knitted together, and he was getting steadily more worried by the second. Had the poor girl mistaken him for a burglar? She let her legs stretch out under the covers again, but she was still sitting bolt upright, her fingers twisting the white fabric pooled at her waist.

“Are you sure?” he tried. He wanted to pull her down with him and hold her until she spilled or slept, but she seemed fragile - as if a touch could shatter her.

“Yeah, don’t worry. It’s nothing. It’s silly.”

“Did I startle you?”

“No, I just had a ridiculous dream, that’s all.”

“What about?”

She opened her mouth but swallowed her words, looking down at her fingers as she gathered and stretched the fabric in her little hands, over and over again. “Look, I meant it when I said it was silly,” she murmured. “It’s just… In my dream, you thought I wanted you to leave after we’d had sex.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake… He knew now was the time to grab her and kiss her and tell her she was out of her mind to consider something as ridiculous as that even on a subconscious level, but what he did instead was sit there, blinking stupidly. He was expecting murderers, earthquakes, fires, students literally sent from hell, or even alien abduction, but that? Not that. Not for him. Even though…

“And I tried to tell you I wanted you to stay,” she continued, “but you didn’t hear me at all. It was like my voice was just gone. And then when I woke up…”

When she woke up, Belle couldn’t find him. She woke up in the dark and he wasn’t there. And she was right - it was nothing. It was silly. Ridiculous. He wouldn’t have done that - _couldn’t_ \- and yet there she sat with her sad smile and her hunched shoulders, breaking his heart. With a quick, unconvincing shrug, Belle clicked off the bedside lamp and brought darkness back into the room. Gold blinked, his eyes slow to adjust. He couldn’t see her.

“You thought I’d left? In my underwear, darling?”

“I didn’t think of that,” she laughed. She sounded nervous, relieved, and embarrassed at the same time. “I told you it was ridiculous. I’m sorry. I was half asleep, and you weren’t there anymore, and -”

“C’mere. It’s alright.”

She wouldn’t break if he touched her; he would break if he didn’t. He blindly reached for her arm and found her elbow. He gave it a gentle pull and guided her down and into his arms. They sank back into the warmth and softness of her bed. She sighed and pushed her face in his chest, her hand sliding from his hip up over his ribs, then up his back to splay against his shoulder blade. She squirmed up a little, pulled herself up and closer until her breath was hot against the skin of his neck. It was tempting to let her warmth guide him back to sleep, but the way she was clinging to him, pushing her face against him, tangling their bodies until there wasn’t a fraction of an inch of distance between them told him that this wasn’t settled. Not nearly yet.

They were too close for anything but murmurs. It was difficult with the way she was glued to him, but he managed to pull her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Did I do something to bring this on?”

“No, no. Not tonight. You were perfect.”

_Not tonight._

Oh.

Oh, and his heart sank down into the pit of his stomach with a sickening thud. Idiot. Blind and self-absorbed. Swanning in here after months of mostly pretending not to give a single iota - not one jot - about the little English teacher who seemed so keen on getting to know him. Just _swanning_ in and finally taking everything she’d been offering him without even so much as an explanation or an apology for how much of a coward he’d been. He knew exactly the thing to say that would take a sledgehammer to her doubts, but uttering those words would be like blowing up a dam to douse a small fire.

“I wasn’t rejecting you. You do know that, don’t you?”

“Felt like it sometimes.”

He could barely hear her. Her quiet murmurs, though close to his ear, sounded muffled. “Belle…”

“I nearly gave up a few times.”

“I’m sorry, love,” he whispered, guiding her face away from his neck so he could kiss her forehead. When he pulled back, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he could see her properly now. Big blue eyes, pale like the moon, devoid of reproach but full of questions.

“I still don’t understand why you were like that. Maybe if I did, I could…”

He didn’t know for sure what she was asking. He didn’t know for sure how she would have ended that sentence had he asked her to. But he nodded. Anything. Anything she wanted of him. He owed her that much, and more.

“Why didn't you reach out to me when I was reaching out to you?”

In the dark, she asked of him something he could easily give. He sighed, closed his eyes for a second, tried to find his words and his courage. “In my mind, I’d already lost you before I had you,” he confessed. God, that sounded preposterous. His mouth was feeling dry again already. There was a tightness in his throat he couldn’t explain, or get rid of.

“Lost me? How?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, sweetheart. I’ve trained myself out of many bad habits, but the impulse is still there sometimes. I thought I’d only…”

He licked his lips and swallowed to try and make that tight feeling in his throat go away.

“Mess up in some way?” she offered, her voice soft and gentle.

“Mess up in all ways,” he replied darkly, eliciting a quiet little laugh. Ah, and that did it. That finally took away the lump in his throat, like magic. “I know I’m being vague. I couldn’t imagine it could work, and then when that changed, I just… I just refused to imagine it. It was safer that way, I thought.”

“You closed yourself off.”

“Yes.”

“Because you were afraid to get hurt.”

Gold gave her a faint smile. When had she started to see right through him? “I tend to do that,” he admitted.

She nodded and studied his face for a moment, her lip in between her teeth and her brow furrowed in thought. “Is that what drove you and your son apart? You didn’t let him in?”

He hadn’t seen that turn in the conversation coming at all, but it made sense, in a way. She’d expressed interest in that before. He took a little too long to answer, his mouth open but his words still firmly stuck inside his skull, and Belle noticed.

“Sorry,” she said, pulling away and scooting back to her own half of the bed. “I know you didn’t want to talk about it before. You don’t have to.”

“No, it’s alright,” he assured her, wondering why she’d pulled away, wishing she would come closer again. “Neal was the exception to the rule. The reason. Well, the excuse, I suppose. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” she said, sounding a little unsure.

“I didn’t give him enough space,” he explained. “I made him my whole universe when his mother left, and I thought that was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t. Not for long. I’d made him all I had, and when he got to a certain age and he started to pull away, I was terrified.”

This was much easier than he thought it would be. The words didn’t get stuck in his throat like he thought they would.

“I made him feel responsible for me, because there was no-one else in my life. I didn’t let anyone else in. I barely let the boy breathe. We fought. Often. It wasn’t pretty.”

She nodded, and it looked as if she understood.

“I didn’t realize what I’d done until… God. Only a few years ago. I despised myself for a long time, until things started getting a little better with Neal. And then you came along, and I was still trying to… Not better myself, exactly. Not even that. Just trying not to be awful. And I thought that whatever you saw in me couldn’t be there. I suppose that’s why I just didn’t…” Her little smile urged him on. “Didn’t reach out, like you said.”

He didn’t have to look away from her beautiful face while he showed her his scars and his shortcomings, and when she opened her pretty mouth to reply, he wasn’t afraid of what she would say next. Not really.

“I’m not seeing any of that awfulness,” she said quietly, visibly confused. “Never have.”

“Well, you weren’t exactly looking for it,” he said, pausing to lick his dry lips. “And I have more flaws than just the ones I mentioned.”

“Oh, don’t think I don’t know that!” she sang, her eyes wide all of the sudden. “You’re slippery, and you’re stubborn, when you’re upset you lash out at people who haven’t got you wrapped around their little finger,” she said, poking him in the chest.

If it hadn’t been for the smirk that kept almost breaking through her attempt at a stern look, Gold would have been shaking in his boots.

“And let’s not forget the going behind my back and threatening everyone with God-knows-what if they don’t look the other way when I screw up. But none of that makes you awful!”

What? Had he threatened anyone lately? He couldn’t recall. What did she even screw up? Could she not screw up when he was there to witness it next time so that he could think back to that and feel better about himself the next time _he_ did? She must have mistaken his confusion for that stubbornness she’d picked up on, because when he stared at her with a blank, helpless look, all she gave him in return was an eyebrow raised in expectation.

“I don’t follow,” he said, frowning.

“Higgins!” she clarified, audibly frustrated. “The whole mess with Gerald’s parents. I haven’t been here for very long, but I know she’s a tough cookie. It doesn’t make sense for her to just let that slide.”

“But -”

“You got her to let me have my curtains back, too. It’s not that big a leap.”

“Now, hold on! I did ask her to let you have the old curtains back, but that was it. I _asked_ her. Only an idiot would threaten a woman like Higgins. She would have me by the scruff of the neck if I even tried.”

That one raised eyebrow of hers lifted even higher, and he was beginning to feel the urge to confess to an offense he hadn’t even committed, just to stop her from staring holes through his skull. “I just told her what had happened, Belle. I knew she would make it stop. That’s all.”

“You didn’t tell her not to mention it to me?”

“No.”

Belle made a strange face and turned to lie on her back, staring up at the ceiling - almost glaring, actually - and shaking her head. “I don’t understand why she didn’t tell me to get it together, at least. It was this close to turning into a police matter, all because I was too embarrassed to tell anyone.”

A police matter at the end of which he’d have been the one in handcuffs.

“Or you,” she added. “Why were you so nice about it? You knew I wasn’t handling it right.”

Because when she told him that rainy night, she’d looked so vulnerable he would have stood on his head and sang a little song if she’d hinted that that would have cheered her up a little, that was why. He’d have to phrase that some other way, though. Better not give her any ideas. He had a terrible singing voice.

“You were new. And I think you know I had a bit of a soft spot for you.” He paused there, because he spotted her pouting lips twitch into a hidden smile, then continued, “We all did. Our protective instincts kicked in the second you walked in looking all hopeful and bright and… compact.”

Another twitch of her lips, and then she turned her head and looked at him with that pout firmly back in place. “You all looked the other way to spare me the embarrassment? No-one thought to sit me down and tell me to stop being an idiot?”

“No-one had to,” he said with a shrug. “The situation got resolved. You gave yourself a good dressing down. Next time, you’ll follow procedure. Done.”

“But Higgins - ”

“Higgins has seen worse, Belle,” he sighed, waving his hand in the air as if swatting away her objections. “I know because I’ve _given_ her worse.”

“But she should have given me a reprimand or something,” she muttered. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Just consider it your one. We all get one. She hides it well, but Higgins is a bleeding heart, and she knows a good teacher when she sees one.”

She stopped scowling at her poor, innocent ceiling to give him a heart-melting hopeful look. “She doesn’t think I’m weak?”

Belle had his heart in her little hand and was squeezing it almost to a pulp. “No,” he said softly, shaking his head. “She’s fond of you, sweetheart. You made a mistake. She hates putting people she likes on the spot, though she should. When you signed your contract, you didn’t exactly join a spotless collective of saints, you know.”

Belle sighed, slow and deep, and Gold watched her face change from that look of frustration and disbelief to something that didn’t hurt him to look at quite so much. She turned to face him again, chewing on her lip in thought. “She doesn’t just sweep _anything_ under the rug, though, does she?”

“God, no. No, don’t go smacking the students around, now,” he joked, his heart fluttering in his chest when that actually made her grin. She reached over and gave his shoulder a gentle push. Warm, simple and meaningful, that was. He caught her hand in his before she could pull it away.

“What was your one?” she asked, her eyes fixed to his lips. Ah. Walked himself squarely into that one, hadn’t he?

“Worse.”

“How much worse?”

He couldn’t speak, suddenly. The dryness in his mouth was back with a vengeance, and her stare was starting to burn again. He looked down at her lips, couldn’t manage much more than a shrug.

“If she forgave you, it can’t have been that bad.”

There were paths he could take. He could lie. Come up with something harmless. He could smile sweetly and ask her if he could tell her some other time. Belle wouldn’t press the matter, and even though she’d already figured out he often lied about trivial things for no good reason whatsoever, he knew she didn’t expect him to now. She didn’t expect him to lie with their faces so close and their voices hushed. She would believe him. That was who she was.

“Why did you do it?”

The question startled him for some reason. He looked up from where he’d been staring at her perfect collarbone and saw her perfectly calm, perfectly patient, perfectly kind. “Does it make a difference?” he asked.

“It makes all the difference, you absolute donut,” she cooed, weaving their fingers together and squeezing his hand. “You know it does.”

He wasn’t so sure if he agreed, but now wasn’t the time for that philosophical discussion on intent and consequences. “Oh, I’m a donut, am I?” he growled instead.

Belle shrugged and bit down on her mischievous smile when suddenly, a low, distant rumble made her look away and towards the window where the curtains were still open just enough to see the rain hit the glass in its steady drizzle.

Well, what do you know. She might just get her thunderstorm after all.

“Same reason for every other bad decision I made in the past few decades,” he said, drawing her gaze back. “I thought I did it for my son. I did it for me.”

Why was she smiling?

“I don’t think it’ll make me feel any different about you, then, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

He had to look away from her again. To ask her to drop it would send her imagination running wild, and lying would be easy. But to lie to her now - after what they’d done, after tasting her skin, after falling asleep with her, after warming himself on her body with only his t-shirt in between them, that would just… That would be crossing a line that was difficult to uncross. And he didn’t even have to, anyway. She knew half the story already. He hadn’t murdered a kid, or anything. No, it was just that old impulse that had almost cost him his son. That urge to cradle everything he owned close to his chest, give nothing away, keep all that was his all his. A tight feeling in the pit of his stomach told him what he didn’t want to do. Now he knew it also told him what he had to.

“I taught him, you know. Neal. He absolutely hated it.”

Those first sentences struggled against the dryness of his mouth and the tightness of his throat as he forced them out. Her little nod helped a bit. He looked down at where their hands were still joined. That helped, too.

“One of the things we couldn’t see eye to eye on was university. He didn’t want to go. God, and he’s a genius, Belle. Truly, he is. He can do anything he sets his mind to. I’m not saying that because I’m his father, he really -”

He stopped talking because she’d begun to smile in a way that suggested she was about to pat him on the cheek and _aww_ at him. He could see she was trying not to, though; pressing her lips together, pursing them. He could even tell she was biting her cheeks. Quickly, before he could feel the blood rush to his face, he shot her a playful warning glare.

“Sorry,” she said, laugher just underneath the surface of her voice. “Carry on.”

“Me being a bloody-minded nightmare of a father, I didn’t even consider it. And he’d thought everything through properly and all, mind. He had a plan. A good one, at that. I just didn’t want to hear it.”

Another distant rumble. No lightning, though. Perhaps the storm would just pass them by. Belle’s eyes were fixed to his, and he was beginning to find it difficult to bravely meet her stare, although there was nothing but kindness in her eyes. Trust.

“So he found another way to lash out. He deliberately failed each and every one of my tests. Didn’t hand in his homework. You can imagine his surprise and anger when his grade for my class didn’t…”

Almost there. A few more words. Then she’d know.

“When his grade didn’t quite reflect that.”

Slowly, while his heart raced, Belle’s eyes grew wide and her lips parted. “Oh. You…”

“Yes,” he said, his voice a useless dry croak of a thing. He tried to swallow down that dryness once and for all, but still his mouth was felt.

“That’s…”

“Bad. Yes.”

“What happened?”

He couldn’t look at her anymore. He had to stare over her shoulder at the window as the rain poured. “He went and had a little chat with Higgins,” he said. “Clever boy. I should have known he’d do that, but I was too concerned with myself. I wasn’t really thinking of him. At all.”

Just like he was too busy despising himself to notice the pretty little English teacher tugging on his sleeve, trying to get him to chase her.

“Higgins ripped me to shreds, don’t get me wrong. And rightfully so. But she could have had my head on a plate, too.”

Belle’s eyes flitted over his face, watching him closely, turning his limbs to stone.

“She knew what had been going on with Neal. The gist of it, at least, because I never let on much. She knew enough to… take pity, I suppose. To want to spare me.”

He didn’t know why, and he didn’t know how, but he’d told the truth and the sky hadn’t come crashing down on his dumb old head. Belle was still there. She was still holding his hand. But unless he asked, he couldn’t be sure, could he? He had to ask, or he’d spend the rest of the night staring at her sleeping face, trying to figure her out.

“Belle?” he breathed, feeling as if his heart had stopped beating for just a moment. “Are we alright? I’d understand if you -”

He couldn’t finish that sentence. The soft dry brush of her lips against his answered his question and sent his heart beating again.

“Belle?”

But she just gave him an indecipherable look and then kissed him again.

“Belle, I -”

“You made a mistake,” she murmured, finally letting go of his hand only to slide it up his arm, over his shoulder and his neck for her fingers to tangle in the hair at his nape. When she kissed him that time, he kissed her back. He put a hand on her hip, pulled her closer, saw a flash of lightning just before he closed his eyes. Storm was getting nearer.

“One I didn’t pay for,” he managed to fit in between two kisses. She made some sort of disapproving sound into the next kiss and pulled him even closer.

“Did you get what you wanted? Didn’t you have to work to get your son back?”

“But deontologically, it was -”

That little frustrated groan right before she swallowed his objections with another searing kiss was something else. What was he even trying to accomplish, here? Talk her out of this? Talk her out of _him_? What manner of imbecile would do that?

She broke the kiss but put her hands on his cheeks, staring deeply, sternly into his eyes. “You weren’t the only person you were punishing by ignoring what was going on between us.”

Oh. 

He’d already opened his mouth for another hastily slapped-together argument, but there was that paralyzing look again. As serious as he’d ever seen her, Belle stared him down, waiting patiently for the dusty, rusty cogs in his brain to finish revolving. Even like this, even with her eyes full of determination and her voice deep and insistent, he couldn’t sense an ounce of reproach in her body. And suddenly everything made sense. Layers and layers of excuses fell away. Simple as that. If she cared for him, like she kept telling him; if she wanted him, like she’d shown him; if he just took everything she’d said and done at face value like a normal, well-adjusted person would, well… Then nothing was wrong. Right?

There was nothing wrong, and it was alright to love her.

“I’m a donut,” he groaned with a deep sigh, sliding his arm under Belle’s giggling body to drag her as close to him as he could possibly get her. She draped herself over his chest, nuzzling his chin like a huge cat. He wouldn’t have been that surprised had she started purring, too. “We ended up going on about me again, and you were the one with a bad dream.”

“’s Alright,” she mewled, straining against a yawn. “Good to get it all out. Will you stop fretting, now? Stop tripping yourself up?”

He thought he’d stopped all of that the night she kissed him, actually. Old habits and all. “I think I will, yeah.”

“Good. Sleep.”

He wanted to kiss her lips, but she’d nestled herself so comfortably against his chest that he didn’t want to risk losing that perfect position, so he kissed the very top of her head instead, pulling the covers up over her shoulder again. They lay there as the storm rumbled on in the distance, not quite getting any nearer by the sound of it. He listened to her breathing, smiled up at the ceiling for a while, feeling calmer than he had felt in a very long time. Everything was alright, after all. Nothing was wrong. And after a few minutes of nothing but rain and thunder and soft breaths, Gold almost thought she’d drifted off when she lifted her warm head from his chest and quietly asked him, “Actually, before we go to sleep, tell me; d’you need another couple of weeks’ notice before we have sex again, or will you be good to go tomorrow?” and made him laugh so hard he thought the neighbors would start banging on the wall any second.

“No,” he managed, shaking his head at her grinning face blurred by the tears of laughter in his eyes before he wiped them away. “No, I think I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, thank God!” she laughed before catching his lips for the good night kiss he’d wanted all along. Her kisses were never quick, never simple. They lasted and left him feeling the ghost of her lips every single time. Grinning, Belle settled back down for sleep. Gold smiled and closed his eyes, wondering just how much sleep they’d be getting anyway, now that they’d stayed up talking for so long. Not that it mattered. They had nowhere to be but with each other.

“Good night, sweetheart.”

“Good night, donut.”

“Don’t push it. You’re not that cute.”

Wasn’t it odd, Gold thought to himself as Belle giggled in his arms, that it was much easier to lie when he knew she wouldn’t buy it for a second?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, seriously. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much.


	12. Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast, groceries, principal pep talks, skinny jeans, cotton candy - I don't know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't make the same dumb 'my hands slipped' joke again, so: Hello, hi, yes, there's 14.5k of whatever this is. I hope you like it.
> 
> A sincere thank you to everyone for reading and being excruciatingly nice in the comments and elsewhere. You guys make writing this stuff so much more fun that it already is. May you all find large amounts of money lying in the street some time this week. <3
> 
>  
> 
> (When I started writing this, I was aiming for 40k total for this fic. Yikes.)

The screech of a seagull nudged him out of slumber, which was odd, because he hadn’t woken up to that sound in years. There were doves and crows near his house that chattered him awake in the morning, yes, but no seagulls. At first, he thought that he’d only imagined it, but then it happened again. Further away that time, but there was still no mistaking it; a seagull with a terrible sense of direction was set on screaming him out of bed. But it was no seagull that made the sheets rustle, and it certainly wasn’t a seagull’s breaths he could hear and feel against his face, so soft and warm it almost felt like sunlight. Gold cracked his eyes open to see a pair of bright blue eyes and a smile, and ah, yes. That was right. He was here, with her. Not in his empty house.

There was Belle, so close she was almost blurry, grinning like it was time to open presents on Christmas morning. Her smile drew out his own, slow and sleepy still. He could get used to this - waking up next to her, seeing her eyes and her smile first thing. And she looked so bloody happy, too. It was almost enough to make him think that perhaps it was a dream after all. The clue was in the eyes, though. He knew he was awake because every time she’d shown up in his dreams, her eyes hadn’t quite been the right color, and they were spot on now.

“Morning, sunshine,” she chirped.

He’d learned to sense an opportunity to rile her up from a mile away, and it was far too tempting that sunny Saturday morning. So after smiling back at her for a moment and taking her in, Gold sighed, closed his eyes and buried his face in the pillow again.

“Oh, no! No! Don’t go back to sleep!” she cried, gently but insistently pawing at his face and making it very, very difficult to keep from laughing.

It was so easy to push her buttons. So rewarding, too. He turned his head away from her and folded his arms under his head so he could grin as much as he liked, but she soon crawled over him, draping herself over his back, making the most charming little petulant noises as she tried to turn him over. Gold couldn’t help but laugh, now. Belle was pulling at his shoulder, groaning, giggling in between heaves. He even let her think it was working once, just so he could roll back and hear her whine in frustration.

“Wake up! We’ve got things to do!” she said, defeated, sliding down from his back and curling her fingers in his hair.

“Things?”

He turned his head to look at her, and she was smiling, blushing from the effort.

“Mm. Things.”

Her stomach rumbled loudly. Gold smirked and mumbled, “Like breakfast, you mean.”

“Other things.”

She pulled at his arm, trying to get him to come closer. This time, he didn’t resist. With his head on her shoulder and a hand on her warm belly, he closed his eyes and sighed. He hadn’t had much sleep. One more minute would be lovely. Just one more minute with his eyes closed and her arms around him like this.

“Poor sleepy sunshine,” she cooed, playfully tugging at his hair.

“I’m only opening my eyes if I can make you breakfast,” he decided.

“Not hungry.”

“You’re lying.”

“And you’re playing dumb. You know if I came right out and asked for it, you’d get all flustered.”

That was a challenge if ever he’d heard one, and he was a fool not to heed her warning, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking up at her anyway. And something was coming. The way she sucked her lips into her mouth and then pressed them tightly together made it obvious. Her eyes betrayed her, too, crinkled skin, twinkling in the sunlight. The corners of her mouth twitched, she licked her lips, and then:

“Fuck me.”

Oh, that damn word and her mouth. On an empty stomach, no less. The little devil was right to warn him. He didn’t know whether to laugh, gasp, groan, or do what she asked him to, but then her face twisted into the brightest grin and she burst out laughing, dragging him along with her.

“Your face!” she giggled.

“That’s not fair at all,” he groaned, dropping his head right back on her shoulder, grinning. “Would have worked if you hadn’t laughed.”

“All’s fair in -”

Silence. Spectacularly loud silence. It was enough to make his ears ring. There with his head on her shoulder, he saw the muscles of her neck move under pale skin as she swallowed. He heard her lick her dry lips. Knew she’d stopped breathing. Meanwhile, his heart had plummeted down, ricocheting through his ribcage, and now thudded heavily in his belly in an unsteady rhythm. When he looked up, he knew the look in her eyes. It was as if she’d tripped. She looked quietly shocked, at first, as she tried to figure out why she was on the floor all of the sudden. Then came the quick flicker of an embarrassed smile, like one you’d put on if you knew someone had just witnessed you trip over your laces.

But her little stumble didn’t faze him. It was too soon, that was all. She didn’t have to say it at all, even, as long as he could take her to bed, talk through the night and wake up with her like this from now on. That was good enough.

Still. Better help her up from the ground.

“Have any eggs, sweetheart?” he asked, sliding off of her shoulder and propping himself up on his elbows.

“Think so, yeah,” she replied quietly, nodding with a half smile.

“Eggs, then?”

“Scrambled, please.”

He kissed her cheek and crawled out of her warm bed, suddenly very aware of his state of undress. His trousers were half kicked under her bed, his belt nowhere to be found. Oh well. It’d turn up. He felt her eyes on him as he looked around the room for his shirt, pulling up his trousers and buttoning them as he went. He wasn’t sure what was there for her to stare at, but he didn’t mind at all. Not with that little grin.

“D’you need help with breakfast?” she asked.

“No, no. You just stay put,” he told her, finding his shirt hanging from a corner of a chair next to the door, a stretch of dark fabric in her white room. “I’ll come bring it to you. Coffee?”

“Yes please.”

He’d started buttoning up his shirt and moving towards the door when he heard a soft sound of disappointment. Not quite a mewl, but close. When he turned around, he saw her sitting up with her arms stretched behind her, almost pouting.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, frowning in confusion.

Belle shrugged. “I wanted to do that thing where I wear your shirt the morning after.”

Oh, honestly, surely she was trying to melt him completely. His shirt? Something of a cliché, wasn’t it? But a very appealing one. Whether it was more appealing than her apartment was chilly, Gold wasn’t so sure, but then he realized it didn’t matter; his shirt wasn’t the only thing he could wear. It was a silly idea - laughable, even - but since it was so much fun to pretend to be inconvenienced by the things that made his heart beat faster and some curious thing in his belly buzz in delight, Gold dramatically sighed, “Oh, alright then,” and began to undo the buttons he’d already done up, moving back towards the bed.

Belle perked right up, throwing the covers out of the way to come sit on her knees at the edge of the bed with a victorious grin. Close, now, Gold took the hem of her t-shirt between his fingers, then pulled it up slow enough for her to realize and lift her arms. The difficult part was keeping up the act at the sight of her naked save for her black panties, her soft hair falling in front of her eyes and her cute little grin. He was supposed to get used to that sight, wasn’t he? If all went well? Couldn’t quite see that happening, for some reason. He dropped the t-shirt next to her on the bed. Biting his tongue, holding his breath for fear of his reverent awe taking the form of some sort of embarrassing noise, Gold draped his shirt over her shoulders, grabbed his t-shirt instead, and stepped back.

“Good?”

“Perfect,” she said, pulling the fabric tighter over her shoulders. “Now hurry back.”

Perfect indeed, Gold thought as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. (It was still warm.) He was going to do this right. He was going to buy her flowers, and books, and books on flowers if she liked that sort of thing, and she could laugh at him all she wanted if it was too much; he would rather nauseate her with romance than let her think for even a second that he wasn’t hopelessly hers. And if she could ask for his shirt, he could bring her breakfast in bed. Only fair.

A quick trip to her little avocado bathroom first (a tiny room with a tiny shower and tiny containers with mystery lotions on every flat surface in sight) and then he set to work in her little avocado kitchen. Or tried to. Because he couldn’t find a thing. Where he personally would have put the pans housed the breakfast cereal, and where he would have put the plates there was just a stack of empty tupperware boxes. No lids. He did find the cutlery drawer on the first try, but he couldn’t exactly serve her eggs on a spoon, could he? The butter, thankfully, was just sitting in the fridge. No surprises there. She had a little wire egg basked shaped like a chicken - perfectly functional and adorable. Two cupboards later, Gold found a frying pan, but getting the thing out of there was a noisy business as she’d stacked all of her pans rather precariously. 

That was why he didn’t notice Belle leave the bedroom and creep up behind him. It was only when he heard the legs of a chair at the island counter scrape over the black and white kitchen linoleum that Gold turned around to see her pretty face cupped in her hands, smiling at him over a basket of apples. How, exactly, did she look better in his clothes than he did?

“I said I’d come bring it to you!”

“You’re taking too long,” she replied with a shrug.

“See? You _are_ hungry.”

Belle rolled her eyes fondly and he got back to work. She didn’t say anything as he melted butter and cracked the eggs. She was still silent, in fact, when she stood up and sidled up to him on her bare feet. She had left his shirt unbuttoned halfway, so when she leaned in closer to look in the pan, Gold caught a glimpse of her breasts and nearly dropped the pepper shaker. Bloody hell, he’d seen her half naked only ten minutes ago, and still the sight of her stunned him into near-paralysis. When he looked to see if she’d noticed his fumble, she had a knowing smirk on her face.

“You could have just _said_ you like your eggs burnt to a crisp,” he muttered, tearing his eyes away from her to make sure nothing had caught fire. No, everything was still very much not on fire. Eggs might be a bit rubbery, but the fire department wouldn’t have to be involved, and that was the important thing.

Belle had elected to ignore his grumbling and wrapped her arms around his waist instead, resting her head on his shoulder, making him smile. She was so quiet and still, now, he almost thought she was going to let him finish cooking. But then her hands slipped up his t-shirt a few inches.

“And what are you up to?” he asked in a low growl. Oh, but he knew. His body certainly did, reacting as it was.

“My hands are cold.”

“They don’t feel cold.” But they were giving him goosebumps.

“Guess they warmed up quick,” she mumbled.

He wasn’t sure what did it, in the end. Her breath through his t-shirt, her hands warming his belly, the memory of her messy hair and her cheeky grin when he took that t-shirt off her, or the echo of what she’d said before that were all likely triggers. Or perhaps it was just the fact that the eggs were done. But Gold was through playing dumb. He’d had his fun winding her up, but the time for that had gone. There was something else he wanted now, rather than her frustrated noises and her dramatic pouts. Now his hands were itching to touch her properly, to get that shirt off her and lay her back down again. Should never have gotten out of bed. Whose useless idea was that, anyway?

So Gold turned off the stove and turned around in her embrace, and her smile sealed the deal and set something in motion with an ease he wished he could have summoned the night before. If he’d been twenty years younger, he might have scooped her up, swung her over his shoulder and carried her into her bedroom. Instead he grabbed her by the waist, pulled her giggling self flush against him and kissed her pretty lips over and over again while guiding her backward towards her bedroom door. He couldn’t kiss her properly with her laughing like that, so he scraped his teeth against her neck and bit down gently, which had the interesting side effect of stilling her giggles and making her gasp instead.

“What about breakfast?” she teased, making an audible effort not to sound affected by his wandering hands.

And he couldn’t joke back, because all of the sudden everything was her. She was all he could feel, see, and hear too - until he heard himself growl when he buried his face in her soft locks. The smell of her bed was still on her, and her hair didn’t smell of any sort of shampoo anymore like it did the night before, it just smelled like _her_ and there was nothing left of him except the part that wanted her. Layers of needless thoughts fell away until there was nothing but her. She kissed him hungrily, spurred him on, slipped her hands up the back of his t-shirt, held on tight. At first he didn’t know where to keep his hands on her, but he found that if he held her head, he could kiss her better. He was messing up her hair and bumping them into her furniture as he walked them back into her bedroom, but she let him, and he let himself, because hadn’t they made it more than clear last night that this was alright? Everything was alright. There was no reason to hold back.

They fell into bed and shed what little clothing they had on. Why had they even bothered? Sliding his hands over her naked body felt electric. Her breasts fit perfectly into his hands, her skin tasted like salt and her. She bucked up against him, his thigh caught in between hers, wordlessly urged him to touch her and bring her closer. Those sounds she made were addictive as well as telling, and he couldn’t believe how fast he’d figured her out like that. Where to touch and how. What that moan meant, what she wanted when she pulled him down by his neck, where to kiss when she was close. When her fingernails stopped scraping his back, he looked up to see what was wrong, but she was only reaching for the nightstand. Condom. He dropped it twice before he managed to tear the packet open, and he knew they would have laughed about it the night before, but now the nerves were gone, and all there was was want, and urgency.

When he was inside of her, finally, she took his face in her hands, wrapped her legs around him, hooked him, kept him close. Her lips were red from kissing, and he knew from the look on her beautiful face and the sound of her breathing that he was doing well, but they weren’t close enough, and it bothered him. Not nearly close enough. Even with their foreheads together, there was too much space in between them, and it conjured up a sick, hollow, urgent, distracting feeling in the pit of his stomach that vanished like a single snowflake on a hot day when she wrapped her arms around him and pulled his head down next to hers, saving him from his strange, greedy thoughts. With her breathing so close to his ear, her lips mouthing against his skin, he could focus on her body’s clues so that somehow, and God, he didn’t _know_ how, he made her come. Stifling a cry, shaking, her limbs pulled him deeper, her mouth making sounds that made him want to tell her he couldn’t possibly be without her anymore; a feeling so strong and so incredibly _there_ in his bones that he thought he might burst at the seams if he didn’t know that she knew. How he was hers. How she should be his. How there was nothing but wanting her now, clinging to her so desperately as if he thought she might disappear the next time he blinked if he didn’t. He didn’t last very long after she rode it out underneath him and her body had stopped shaking. He couldn’t, because she’d started talking, her voice hot and textured in his ear. He came when she whispered something devilish, then something sweet right after, and almost every thought left him when her lips met his neck and kissed a trail of kisses up to his jaw, lifting his reeling head to catch his lips and kiss those too.

 _Don’t crush her. Move._ It was the only thought louder than their breathing. The last thing he could do before his limbs turned the consistency of marshmallow and he felt himself sinking into her mattress, facedown, out of breath. Belle was moving, but not away from him entirely. She reached for the waste basket but never took her hand from his arm. Did she know he needed that, or did she need it just as much? Grabbing the blanket they’d kicked to the foot of the bed the night before, she came flying right back into his arms again with a great big sigh and clumsily covered their naked bodies before the cold air met the sweat on their skin and chilled them. She mumbled something in the crook of his neck, and he couldn’t make it out entirely, but the words ‘really’ and ‘amazing’ did register, and that was all he needed to hear.

As his heart slowed, Gold looked around the room, quietly appreciating the way the late morning sun had painted this blank canvas of a room a warm golden color. The place wasn’t white anymore so much as it was just light. One of the glass candleholders cast a red shadow on the nightstand next to the bed. The other a deep blue one on the wall behind the dresser. And there was her patchwork blanket, too, keeping them warm and close, as colorful as her. He could smell the eggs in the other room. Not burnt. Just cooked.

“Did you have any more dreams last night?” Gold asked, wanting to keep her near him for a little while longer before they got up and had breakfast after all.

“No,” she said, and he could feel her smile against his skin. “Did you?”

“I thought I did. I heard seagulls this morning and I thought I was dreaming. You never hear those in my neighborhood.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “Doves. Crows. Wee fluttery chatterboxes out in the garden, can’t remember what they’re called.”

“That sounds lovely.”

“The doves are alright. The crows are just dramatic.”

“Dramatic?” she giggled, lifting her head to grin at him.

“Very.” He couldn’t say much more. The light struck her face in just the right way to make her eyes even bluer, and the sight had him at a loss for words.

Belle kissed his jaw and then shifted in his embrace to fold her arms on his chest and rest her chin on them. He liked it when she did that. When she leaned on him. “I was thinking maybe we could take a shower here and then head over to your place? I really like your house. Sun’s shining. You’ve got a garden. I don’t even have a balcony.”

And he also had a bedroom with a bed and dark blue sheets he would have liked to see her pale skin against, so Gold nodded, told her yes, of course, anything she liked. Belle looked hopeful and happy, and as she reached up and tucked his hair behind his ear (he didn’t like it tucked behind his ear, but she didn’t need to know that) he felt much the same. Hopeful. Happy.

“Would it be presumptuous of me to bring an overnight bag?”

He would fit her entire apartment into his car if she asked him to.

“I insist,” he said, watching her smile get even bigger. “Groceries on the way there, though. I don’t have any food in the house. I could cook.”

“ _We’ll_ cook.”

“Alright, we’ll cook,” he said, returning her grin.

She microwaved the abandoned eggs, which made them atrocious, but Gold didn’t care much. He’d have devoured a plate of finely chopped cardboard if it would have stopped his stomach from growling and distracting him from her. Her shower was definitely too small for two, but they made it work somehow, even with her accidentally elbowing him in the ribs, and him accidentally stepping on her foot. The sight of her - wet, laughing, ridiculously beautiful - kept his mind off his ankle, even when she returned the favor and accidentally stepped on his heel getting out of the shower. Getting dressed took a while, because they’d started kissing halfway through, and by the time they finally made it into his car, it was past noon.

It was surprisingly warm out, with only a few small puddles to remind them of last night’s little storm. They drove with the windows down, Belle letting her hair dry by leaning a little too far out of the window than his heart could take. She pulled it into a quick ponytail once they’d made it to their destination, bouncing up to the sliding doors, turning around with a great big smile to wait for him to catch up. Through the sliding doors they went, and in the aisles, the pair of them walked slow, him carrying a basket they were forgetting to fill.

“I think it’s my turn to ask questions, now,” decided Belle somewhere in the cereal aisle, where they had no reason to be since they’d decided on stir-fry for dinner back in the car.

“Is it?” Gold asked absently, recognizing a box of cereal he’d seen in one of her kitchen cupboards. He put it in his basket, just in case he ruined tomorrow morning’s scrambled eggs, too.

“It’s our pattern,” she said, bumping her arm into his playfully. “We have sex, then someone gets interrogated.”

Gold laughed at her choice of words and shook his head. “How can it be a pattern if we’ve only done that the one time?”

“One and a half. When I ask you this question, it’ll be two.”

“Question? Singular? Just the one?”

“Well, it’s a biggie,” she said, a little quieter now. When he looked over, she was watching him closely, biting her lip, her eyebrows raised expectantly. 

“Go on, then,” he sighed, smiling as they slowly made their way into the produce section.

“It’s just that you know about my exes,” she began, glancing from the shiitakes to his face furtively once or twice to see if he knew where this was heading, which he did. Although it wasn’t his subject of choice, he couldn’t blame Belle for asking. It was probably something that would have come up had they had one more drunken night together, anyway. Why not here, underneath the bright fluorescent lights buzzing overhead? That way, when they made it to his house, it would be over and done with. Exposed to this harsh light and left behind near the mushrooms.

“You want to know about my ex-wife,” he said, nodding and offering a smile to tell her it was alright to ask.

“If that’s alright.”

“Bell peppers.”

“What?”

“We need bell peppers,” he said, free hand in the small of her back, guiding her in the right direction. “Red ones.”

“Oh, alright,” said Belle, giving him a curious look. Probably wondering if he was going to tell her at all. “How many?”

One, but he might make a salad later this week. “Two,” he replied, licking his dry lips in the hopes that it might make the words come out easier. “Her name’s Milah. She’s in South Africa at the moment, I think.”

“You think?” She dropped the second bell pepper in the little plastic bag and frowned, confused.

Gold nodded and took the bag from her, placing it in his basket, next to the cereal. “Travels a lot.”

“Ah. Celery?”

“No, still have some at home,” he replied. “You can more or less track her by the birthday cards she sends Neal. Last year, it was Taiwan.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“Oh, uh… Hold on.” Bell peppers, celery, what else? He paused for a moment to take a look around, hoping he’d remember if he saw it. Bell peppers, celery, and ah: “Carrots, dear. She’s never really explained, but it’s work-related. She and her partner, they move often.”

Belle nodded and handed him the bag of carrots, sweetly running her hand over his back as she passed and went in search of whatever it was he was forgetting, just a few feet away from him. Snow peas, as it turned out. Forgot about the snow peas. This was easier, in a way, having two conversations at the same time. Or well, one conversation and one attempt to reconstruct a stir-fry recipe.

“Has she remarried?”

“Not sure. We don’t really keep in touch. I doubt it, though. She’s not exactly the type.”

“To remarry?”

“To marry at all, actually,” he muttered with a wry smile, “but yes.”

Had he run out of onions? He rarely ever ran out of onions. No, definitely still had some onions. And was this conversation going well? He glanced over at Belle. She’d stopped looking at the produce and was cradling a bag of snow peas to her chest, staring at him with interest, her lips parted in that way that told him she was completely focused. He smiled, took the bag from her and began to head to the aisle where he thought the egg noodles would be. Belle slipped her arm around his and pulled herself close as they walked.

“So what happened?”

“We were doing alright back home. I was considering a PhD, she was working odd jobs here and there, never the same thing for too long. We weren’t perfect, but we were fine, mostly. What happened was Neal came along a little too early, and neither of us was really ready, but… She was less ready than I was. Let’s put it that way.”

“Oh.”

“Mm. Went through with the pregnancy. We thought we’d adjust. I did, at least. Milah hoped. We got married because I insisted and her parents pressured her. We ended up moving here as a last-ditch attempt to get it out of her system.”

“It?”

Aha. Egg noodles.

He shrugged. “The running, I suppose.”

Yes, egg noodles. There they were. He had to take his arm back from her in order to grab them, which was unfortunate. He liked having her close like that.

“Long story short,” he sighed, dropping the pack in the basket, “it didn’t work out. Having Neal didn’t change much. She tried, though. Really did. But after a few years of trying, she met someone who wasn’t tied down. He was the catalyst. Asked me for a divorce, gave up custody, flew off to… God, where was it? Quebec, I think.”

“Quebec?” Belle snorted, looking as if he’d just spoken in tongues. “Seriously? Quebec?”

“Yes, Quebec. I know,” he muttered dryly. “If you’re going to make a dramatic dash to freedom and leave it all behind, fly off to Argentina, at least. Christ.”

Belle’s giggle was a relief, but her laughter didn’t last very long. He saw a change, a sudden realization come over her as they ambled back towards the produce section. They were just wandering aimlessly, now, unless his subconscious was telling him to reconsider leaving the onions behind. “How old was Neal?” she asked, her voice very quiet all of the sudden.

“Just turned five.”

“Jesus… ”

“I won’t lie. It was awful, explaining it to him. The first couple of months, he’d wake up in the middle of the night and he’d have forgotten. He’d ask for her.”

Belle bit her lip and looked so concerned he wanted to drop the basket to the floor and pull her into a hug, but she didn’t give him the chance. She slipped her arm around his again - warm and soft, reassuring - and asked him, “What about you? How did you take it?”

“Oh,” he sighed, shaking his head, waving his hand to dismiss any sort of image she might have had of him with his hands in his hair, crying into his whisky. It might have actually occurred, but she didn’t need to know that. “I knew it was going to happen at some point. We’d fallen out of love years before. It wasn’t that big a surprise, it just…”

She gave him the most intense look he’d ever seen on her with her clothes still on, and he swallowed whatever half lie he had been about to say just then. Instead, Gold shrugged and admitted, “It hurt. Of course it did. It was terrifying to think that I’d have to take care of my boy on my own. But it was worse for him.”

Shiitakes. Yes, that was it. Just walked straight past the shiitakes when that was the one thing they both agreed should definitely go into the stir-fry. But she was staring at him still, eyes dancing over his face in concern, her arm squeezing a little tighter.

“Anything else you’d like to know?” he asked, smiling to let her know that he was alright.

“No, that’s all. Thank you.” She stood on her tiptoes to give him a sweet kiss on the cheek, then gently tugged him onwards. “Can we get ice cream? I want ice cream.”

That was it, then? Onwards to ice cream, was it? He just absolutely had to stare at her then, for a few seconds at least, and quietly contemplate his fortune. Not a hint of pity, or worry, or doubt in her smile. Her question answered, the deal sealed with a kiss. And now she wanted ice cream.

“Go nuts,” he said, giving her an encouraging push towards the frozen section, then hurriedly adding, “Not literally. I don’t like nuts in my ice cream.”

“Noted.”

He watched her bounce on, but then she turned around and asked him, “Chocolate?”

“Perfect.”

Loving someone wasn’t as complicated as he remembered it to be.

Getting Belle into his house felt like a victory, although there hadn’t been a battle of any kind, and she’d been there before. She’d stayed the night, even, but this was different. She had her bag with her, and that flirtatious smile of hers on like it was permanent. She kept making excuses to touch him, kept shooting him looks the meaning of which wasn’t lost on him now that he’d seen where those looks could lead. She was making him smile so often it was barely worth stopping, because she didn’t give him any time to recover from whatever adorable thing it was that made his heart sing and his lips twist before she did something else to make him feel impossibly warm inside.

He went upstairs to change his clothes and brush his teeth and came back down to find her standing out in the garden, admiring the roses, eating ice cream from a soup bowl, her pretty blue dress fluttering around her thighs in the warm breeze. She waved at him through the glass door and pointed at a second bowl on the garden table. Ice cream before dinner, then. Why not? Gold walked out and joined her, and they sat at his iron garden table, their chairs pushed close together. A stray cat perched atop the fence on the other side of the garden squinted at them sleepily.

“Didn’t take you for a gardener,” said Belle, nodding towards his rose bushes - more white ones than red ones this year. Something chirped sharply and fluttered its wings inside the red rose bush, but didn’t fly out.

“I’m not. They were here when I bought the house. Seemed a shame not to take care of them.”

“I think that makes you a gardener.”

“God, please, no.” Gold cringed and groaned, making her throw her head back and laugh at his dramatics. “Perhaps in about twenty years, when I have literally nothing else to do and hell has frozen over, I wouldn’t object to the term. _Perhaps_.”

“What’s your problem with gardening, you ridiculous man?” she laughed.

Gold shrugged. “Seems like something you’d pick up if there’s no point to anything else anymore. A euthanasia alternative. Every single self-professed gardener I’ve ever met has been an insufferable -”

Belle had had enough of his grumbling, it seems, because she’d shoved a spoonful of her ice cream in his mouth and shut him up in the most delicious way. “You’re so dramatic,” she said, grinning and shaking her head. He glared at her playfully as she giggled and reached out to wipe a drop away from the corner of his mouth.

“You asked!” he said after he’d swallowed down his mouthful. “I was just answering your -”

He was wrong. Kissing him was the most delicious way of shutting him up. Cold lips in the afternoon sunlight, her thigh warm under the palm of his hand, the smell of roses all around them, and something else a little smoky. Somewhere in the neighborhood, someone was firing up a barbecue, probably.

“I’m still hungry,” she said, standing up and grabbing his hand to pull him up with her as if she hadn’t just kissed his bones to jelly. “I’ll peel the carrots.”

It turned out they both liked a glass of wine while they cooked. They forgot whose glass was whose several times but stopped caring after the second time. The stir-fry wasn’t anywhere near a disaster, and she ate two helpings at the speed of light, waiting for him to finish with a mystifying smile that only started making sense when she stood up, took his wrist in her hand and tried to pull him up.

“What’s the plan?” he asked, although her smirk was worth a million words, and he did have _some_ idea.

Not twenty seconds later, he ended up pushed down onto the sofa with Belle astride his lap, his hands rubbing circles on her thighs and her mouth on his neck. Every time he inched his fingers up under the hem of her dress, she made a little sound he wasn’t sure she was aware of making and licked at his skin. He tried to kiss her, but she was busy fiddling with the buttons on his shirt, giving up halfway through and reaching for his belt instead. God, he wished she’d worn a separate top so he could get that off her right away, but then he found that he could push the straps of her dress off her shoulders and that worked pretty nicely, too. She pushed frantic kisses against the skin she’d exposed before she’d gotten distracted by his belt, and all of the sudden she was palming him, already half hard, through his boxers, and he was hit with a disastrous realization.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his hands stilling over her perfect breasts and dropping to her thighs again, defeated. 

“Huh?”

She looked up, her eyes glazed over, her mouth open. Lust, loud and clear. He swallowed and quietly muttered, “I don’t have any condoms, love,” letting his head fall back against the sofa with a sigh.

He only just caught her grin before she leaned in to kiss a sensitive spot below his ear. “Good thing I brought some, then,” she purred, and oh God, she was an angel. He’d gone and bagged himself an actual angel of the more adventurous, profane kind, which is the best kind, really, if you think about it.

“Of course you did,” he growled, burying his hands in her hair so he could tilt her clever, thoughtful little head up and taste her neck.

“So was it forgetfulness or pessimism?” she breathed, splaying her hands against his chest and digging her fingertips in the flesh.

“Hm. Both. If you knew I wouldn’t have any in the house, why didn’t you tell me to buy some earlier?”

She pulled away and cupped his face in her warm hands, smiling in a different way, now. Her chest was still heaving, but the fire had gone out of her eyes a little bit. “The guy at the checkout, he’s uh, the older brother of one of the kids I teach.”

Gold knitted his eyebrows together and hoped that if he stared hard enough, her meaning would become clear, but he didn’t quite see the problem no matter how long he stared at her. She didn’t seem the type to be embarrassed, so what was this about? Everyone would find out eventually, anyway, and they’d been flirting up a storm from the moment they walked into the store; he wouldn’t be surprised if everyone knew this time on Monday.

“I don’t mind if anyone knows. On the contrary.”

They’d seen him dance with her, anyway. God, he’d nearly forgotten. He’d tried so hard to forget about the watching crowd, and it had almost worked. He’d almost polished the memory to perfection so that it was just him and her, dancing to something less embarrassing than what it was, and nowhere near a gym, for that matter.

Belle smiled sweetly and kissed his lips, one hand still on his cheek, the other sliding through his hair. “I don’t mind them knowing either, sunshine, eventually,” she cooed when she pulled back. “But think back to when you were that age. Mr Gold and Ms French buying condoms together? Really? It’s alright for you, but who d’you think’s gonna get the brunt of the shitty jokes?”

She didn’t wait for a reply, just kissed him again, gently grabbed a handful of hair and got back to biting his neck, and he understood, now. “Fuck. Sorry. Of course,” he said hurriedly, trying not to gasp at her knowing little touches. “No buying condoms from the students or their relatives. Perfectly sensible.”

She was giving him maddening butterfly kisses all over his neck, his collarbone, his jaw, and when she took care of the last few buttons of his shirt and pushed the fabric from his shoulders, she got to work on thoroughly kissing that part of his body, too. “They’re gonna be obnoxious whatever we do, but let’s not make it easy for them,” she mumbled in between little nips at his shoulder. “They don’t need the material.”

“Yeah, that… that’s… yeah…” She didn’t really expect him to still be listening when she was feeling him up through his boxers, right? From the sound of her laughter, deep and sweet like honey deliciously close to his ear, it seemed she didn’t.

Then finally, _finally_ she kissed him properly, guiding his arms around her waist and pulling herself closer to him. The corner of her mouth still tasted like chocolate ice cream, the rest was just her. They stayed like that for long, glorious minutes, until she’d kissed every last bit of patience out of him, and in his bed she pushed him onto his back and fucked him until he was a wordless, sweating mess underneath her, clutching at her thighs, every last drop of his self-control going into making sure he didn’t bruise. And then she crashed down on him, shivering, blindly seeking out his mouth for a clumsy kiss, and the words welled up in yet another wave of adoration so intense he had to mouth them silently into her hair as he held her close for fear of his heart bursting if he didn’t.

The rest of their evening was quiet, content, slow and a little sleepy, drinking wine in his living room and always keeping close. Terrible television wasn’t all that terrible if she was there in his lap, making cute little comments here and there. She was curled up, using his thigh for a pillow, and she let him play with her hair. It was the first time Gold had ever been able to sit through a single episode of a singing competition. If he pulled her hair out of the way and leaned over just a little bit, just like that, he could see her eyes flit over the screen, her mouth a little open, completely engrossed in the narrative - even if there wasn’t much of one. But she didn’t need much to get her imagination going. He knew that, now.

“Do you have anywhere you need to be tomorrow?” he asked her.

Belle twisted around to lie flat on her back, her head still warming his lap. “Not first thing in the morning,” she said, “but I was going to visit my dad. It’s been a while.”

He made a deep, soft sound in his throat to tell her he understood, and brushed his fingertips against her cheek. They wouldn’t be spending Sunday together, then. That was a little bit disappointing, but he was sure he was being greedy, too.

Belle let go of the lip she’d been chewing, frowned and told him, “It’s just that I already cancelled last time…”

“No, it’s alright!” he assured her. “Just wondering when we’ll see each other again, that’s all.”

“Monday, obviously,” Belle teased in a deeper voice, “unless you quit your job while I was in the bathroom earlier.”

He glared and tickled her just underneath her chin, sending her squirming and giggling and making him grab hold of her hip so she wouldn’t fall off the sofa. “You know what I mean, smartarse.”

She hummed a thoughtful sound, her eyes to the ceiling as she mulled it over for a moment before chirping out, “Nope! Monday still works. I don’t see why we couldn’t get takeout and have dinner together. At my place, or here.” She smirked a little bit with that last word. She liked it here. She liked being here with him in his house that echoed his coughs back at him because it was so bloody _empty_.

“Takeout? Was dinner that bad?”

“No! And I loved cooking with you, but if we got takeout, we’d have time for other things.”

Again a little smirk right at the end there, and this time Gold couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “You can be so direct one minute and it’s all hints and winks and _other things_ the next. It’s the strangest thing.”

Her cheeks reddened just a touch, and she shrugged, wiggling her eyebrows at him playfully. “Which do you prefer?”

“Your unique combination of both is just fine, my darling,” he decided, leaning down to catch her lips and kiss her softly while some poor balding man on the television wowed the judges by not _sounding_ like a balding man, whatever that meant. So Belle would be here again on Monday. They’d eat something fatty and overpriced, and then she would pounce on him unless he beat her to the punch.

Hours later, when the wine was gone, she warmed his bed with him. She wore another one of his t-shirts (she’d brought the old one but couldn’t resist a freshly washed one when he offered) and lay with her back against his chest, pulling his arms around her waist and curling up with a content little sound that was a cross between a sigh and a mewl. What with the wine and how long they’d stayed up the night before, it felt like sleep wasn’t too far behind. His eyes were heavy, and the sound of her breathing was lulling him to sleep slowly but surely, safe in the knowledge that she was there with him, as close to his heart as he could get her.

Then suddenly, in the darkness, a quiet question in a timid voice. “Are you still awake?”

Just about. He mumbled his answer against her shoulder.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He brushed her hair over her shoulder and kissed the back of her neck. “Go ahead.”

She took her time. It made him wonder if she’d nodded off, or if she’d even been awake at all, but then she found one of his hands under the comforter, covered it with hers and softly, so softly asked him, “Are you my boyfriend?”

Oh, that was just about the sweetest thing he’d ever heard. So sweet, in fact, that he doubted whether he’d heard her right. “Sounds a little bit like you lost him and forgot what he looks like,” he murmured, smiling into her soft hair. Belle squeezed his hand. Didn’t laugh. Not at all. Not even a forced giggle. So he swallowed the rest of his stupid jokes and clenched his eyes shut, cursing himself for reading the mood completely backwards and upside down.

“Are you?”

Belle was at her most vulnerable at night. With her back turned to him, with the lights out and in the nighttime calm of a sleepy street, this curious creature became littler, more fragile, her voice brittle and barely louder than the softest whisper. Was it too dark in here, was that it? Could he ask her if she needed the door cracked open and the hallway light on without sounding like the world’s most patronizing boyfriend?

“Of course I am.”

He didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she sighed - a shaky thing that turned into a soft little laugh right at the end. “Good. That’s good.”

“Good.”

He pulled her closer and splayed his hand over her belly, wondering if it had done the funny things he knew his would have done when she asked him that question. Whether her heart had been racing when she finally decided to ask.

He’d cut her a rose from the garden tomorrow, before she left. That was what he’d do. If she could ask him if he was her boyfriend, he could give her a rose from his garden. Only fair.

…

There was really no reason to show up painfully early to work anymore now that he didn’t have to steal little moments with her here and there, but they couldn’t seem to break the habit. He’d only seen her for about an hour on Sunday before she left to visit her father, and it was all too new, too exciting for him not to drag himself out of the house much too early yet again that Monday morning. So Gold arrived first and made sure the tea would be just about ready when Belle walked in, and when she did, she was smiling and glowing in the sunlight, and she walked right up to where he was stood in the little kitchen area to bump her hip into his. It was all he could do not to grab her and lift her up onto the counter to kiss her properly.

Would have been unprofessional.

So that was a little bit frustrating, to say the least, but there was something nice about the suspense and the promise, too. Belle read her book, he read the paper. Or tried to; she caught him staring once or twice and returned his looks with a knowing smile, but the third time, she just seemed to sense it. She reached over and put her hand on his without looking up, just smiling at her book, stroking the back of his hand with dainty fingertips. Yes, this was nice. This would get him through the rest of the day just fine. He turned his hand over and caught her fingers between his own. Finally, she looked up from her book to aim that smile at him.

“Gold, I need you to - Oh!”

Belle’s eyes grew wide in an instant, and Gold whipped his head around to see Higgins standing in the doorway. Eyes wide, mouth open. She turned on her heels and walked away with a curious cackle and a cheerful, “Never mind!”

Ah, fuck.

“Oops,” said Belle, and when he looked at her she was blushing, smiling and biting her lip, and he felt better already. Wasn’t so bad, really. Could have been worse. He could have caved and pushed her up on that counter after all.

“I suppose I’d better go and have a word,” he sighed, letting go of Belle’s hand to push himself up from his chair.

“Ooh, are we in trouble?” she sang with a charming grin.

“ _You_ are. I’m telling her you’re the ringleader.”

“The ringleader of two?”

“Small ring. Very exclusive.”

She snorted and told him, “Hurry back,” pushing her nose right back in her book before he had one foot out of the door.

He tried to make himself look as dark and stern and uncaring as he could in the few steps it took him to get to Higgins’ office, which just meant wrestling down his smile and squaring his shoulders, really. When he entered, she was sat at her desk, leaning back in her chair with an incredibly smug smile.

“What are you grinning about, Margaret?” he sighed, putting on his best annoyed face as he all but slammed the door shut behind him. Keeping up the act was a little more difficult than usual, knowing that Belle was waiting for him just a bit further down the hall, slurping her tea, careful not to spill it on her book.

“See, that’s funny,” she said, her knowing stare pinning him to the floor right behind one of the chairs in front of her desk, “cause I don’t think you realize you’re still smiling.”

Fuck. He was. Gold forced the corners of his mouth down and bit his cheek for good measure.

“I’m grinning, Gold, because a bunch of our colleagues owe me a lot of money, now.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Were you… Were you betting on this?”

“You earned me 300 bucks, old pal! Thanks for that!”

“You treacherous -”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” she scoffed, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. “I was the only one not betting against you. Everyone else was convinced she’d get tired of trying. Either that, or you’d do something stupid and make her come to her senses.”

Well. Couldn’t say he wouldn’t have bet against himself, too. But still: rude. “Do you expect me to thank you?”

“Nope! In fact, I think I already thanked _you_ , didn’t I? Just tell me, when did the situation change, exactly? Before the dance or after?”

“Right after,” he mumbled.

“So when you were dancing -”

“You heard about that?”

She shot him a look that told him that was a profoundly stupid question, and he realized that it probably was. They must have seen right through him. All of them.

“So when you two danced,” she continued, considering his stupid question answered, “you were still acting like you weren’t head over heels for the girl?”

He barked a begrudged, “Yes, alright?” and folded his arms over his chest.

“That makes it so much better,” she laughed, throwing her head back. “Wish I’d been there.”

“Yes, it was a great night if you’re a Bananarama fan. Now what was it you wanted?”

“Oh, cheer up, Gold. One thing. Well, two things, now. First of all, can we just repeat the maritime museum trip next year with the same budget, or was it a one-off deal?”

“Should work,” he said quietly, a little surprised at how easily she’d dropped the subject. “Unless group ticket prices go up, but then that shouldn’t make too big a difference.”

“Alright, great!” she said, slapping her palm on the table. She cleared her throat with a cough and then continued. “Second thing. Might wanna sit down, now.”

He raised an eyebrow but did as she suggested, sitting down and folding his hands in his lap. Higgins sighed, leaned forward on her desk and stared at him over the rim of her glasses, her grey eyes darkening as she tucked in her chin just a little bit to make herself look even more intimidating than usual. Not that that worked on him. Much.

“I really like this one, Gold,” she said in a deep voice, making it sound like a warning. “And if you screw up and scare her away from my school, so help me God I will drag your classroom into the twenty-first century myself. You can say goodbye to your chalkboard and your precious wooden desk, and I’ll throw your fancy tea into the goddamn harbor, too.”

“Are you trying to make a historical reference to -”

“Yes. Did it help? Have I made myself clear? She cares for you. Don’t sabotage yourself.”

“I don’t want to,” he said meekly, looking down into his lap and back up again with his brow creased. “I really don’t.”

“I know,” she sighed, the harsh look in her eyes softening as she sat back in her chair again. “But you’re your own worst enemy, and a formidable one at that.”

He couldn’t help himself. If there was something he could grab here, something that would make him feel safer with a woman who seemed so obviously out of reach but somehow _wasn’t_ , he would fish for it. Hell, he would outright ask for it. He needed all the help he could get. “When you say she cares for me…”

Higgins raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Let’s just say I accidentally got in between you and the eyes she was making at you once, and I still haven’t fully recovered,” she said, laughter lacing her voice. “She’s been following you around like a lovesick puppy since day one. More like an ambitious Jack Russell Terrier determined to chew your leg off, at times.”

Gold cringed at the imagery but couldn’t stop himself from smiling. That helped. That would do just fine. “How _is_ Hannibal?”

“Oh, much better since we dug the fence deeper into the ground. The rabbit’s expected to recover, I hear.”

“Excellent news!” he cried, slapping the arm rests of his chair and lifting himself up. “I’m sure the 300 dollars your betrayal earned you will cover the veterinary costs.”

“Sit down, Gold,” sighed Higgins, taking her glasses off and rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m not done with this pep talk.”

“This is a pep talk?” he asked, screwing up his face and jerking his head back. “I thought I was being threatened.”

“I’m trying, alright? I’m not used to pouring this amount of sincerity into our conversations. Not sober, anyway.”

True. This was new and difficult. The pair of them communicated in half-hearted insults and unnecessary contrariness, not in truths and benevolent lingering gazes like this, which was why he got on with her in the first place.

“I suppose what I want to say is just… God, just let something good happen for once, will you? Please do that for me.”

She mouthed _‘You owe me’_ and made him replace his fond smile with a glare, but still he nodded. He understood. She wasn’t out of line, either.

“Good!” she chimed, “Now off with you, Romeo.”

“Did you even read the bloody play, Margaret?” he groaned as he hoisted himself up from her chair for the final time that day.

“Nope!”

“I’m resigning,” he sighed. That was probably his thirtieth resignation in the time they’d known each other, and when he closed the door behind him, he could still hear her laugh. Always made her laugh, that one.

When he walked back into the teacher’s lounge, they were no longer alone. His little chat with Higgins must have taken quite a bit longer than he’d hoped. There was chatter, now, and the sound of the coffee machine on its last legs, the kettle bubbling, tea spoons scraping against ceramic, and someone hadn’t silenced their phone yet, but when he saw Belle’s smile as he walked into the room, it all bounced off of him. Everything but her.

“And?”

Smiling right back at her, Gold sat down in his seat, leaned in close and whispered, “You’re in trouble.” She giggled, and his stupid old heart did that fluttery thing again. He was starting to like it.

He couldn’t resist looking in on her later that day. He was just heading back to his empty classroom to enjoy his cup of tea there, but then he noticed her door was open, and he made a detour, quietly as he could. A window was open. With the pretty yellow dress she was wearing, he almost expected a little flock of birds to perch on the windowsill and start a musical number. Her class was working in silence, scribbling away, and Belle was looking off into the distance, her bottom lip jutting out as it tended to do when she was daydreaming, fingers slowly twirling a pen. Carefully, so as not to draw the attention of the students, Gold lifted a hand and waved just once, and it did the trick. She looked over, blinked her daydream away, and smiled when she saw him. Genuinely smiled. A smile he could feel in his bones, warming him from the inside out. He supposed he should probably move on before the students noticed, but his feet felt so heavy all of the sudden, and Belle wasn’t looking away, which meant that he couldn’t, either. After a few more seconds of daft smiling, she nodded towards the back of the class. Whatever it was, he couldn’t see it from there. He mouthed _‘What?’_ , but she just raised her eyebrows and nodded towards the very same spot again. Peeking around the doorframe made some of the kids look up. He couldn’t see a thing. Unless…

The alcove. The bloody alcove.

Gold snapped his head back around and found her grinning and shaking in silent laughter, and he felt his face heat up and his lips twist in a grin as broad as hers. Playfully narrowing his eyes at her, Gold tore himself away from her doorway before the blush reached his cheeks, and walked on.

Good thing it was almost summer. Couldn’t try and trip him up in school if they weren’t actually _in_ school, could she?

That afternoon, he took her to his house via the nearest Chinese restaurant, and once they’d had their dinner, she lunged, as predicted. Now that they’d established a pattern of sorts, he could start looking for the signs. As the weeks progressed, they cooked every single recipe the pair of them could agree on, and sampled every restaurant that offered takeaway in the vicinity. Slowly but surely, Gold began to learn.

Sometimes there wouldn’t be much of a warning. They’d be loading the dishwasher or watching something awful on TV, and all of the sudden her hand would be somewhere rather forward - like right down the front of his trousers, for instance - and he’d be backed into a wall and immobilized by her fiery eyes. He confused the signs with annoyance at first; with her eyes so intense and her lips parted for what he thought was an imminent reprimand but turned out to be her tongue, right before she slipped it into his mouth and stole his words. Other times, they would be sitting close after a glass of wine or two, and there would be a finger gently poking him in the ribs just softly enough to get his attention but not to tickle, or she would play with a button on his shirt. If he waited and pretended not to pick up on her hints, Belle would move a little closer, or let that finger drift a little lower, and he knew then that what she wanted was for him to take her to bed, lay her down, take her clothes off and touch her slowly and lightly until she was out of breath, desperate, and begged him to stop teasing.

Sometimes Belle wanted slow, and sometimes she wanted fast, and Gold was always up for either. It was all the same to him, in the end. In the end, it just meant he could hold her, see all of her (if she had the patience to actually take off any clothes) and make her feel good.

One night, there was something new.

They hadn’t seen each other for a few days, busy wrapping up the school year and tying loose ends. They would see each other at work, of course, but there were no pizza nights in her apartment, no half-improvised, half-googled recipes for dinner or culinary disaster. They would each head home at the end of the day, kissing each other goodbye a little longer, holding hands a little tighter, making promises for when school let out for the summer.

But then one night, Belle called. Gold scrambled for his phone, and before he could even say hello, she asked him, “So how do you feel about phone sex?”

Just like that. No preamble. He’d been sitting up in bed, dressed in his pajamas with a book in his lap, just about ready to turn off the light and try to get some sleep. Now he was wide awake.

“Are you suggesting…”

“It’s just a question, no pressure. Not your thing?”

“Don’t know,” said, putting the book face down on the empty space next to him where she ought to have been. “Can’t say I’ve done it before.”

He wanted to ask her whether she was serious, but there was something in her voice he recognized from their long nights together, so he decided not to. He knew the answer, really.

“Me neither, but I was just thinking about you. We haven’t had any time alone, lately. I miss you.”

Gold smiled and scooted a little further down the bed, settling into a more comfortable position. “I miss you too. And I’d love to indulge you, dear, but I’m afraid I’d be useless at this. Probably be very awkward and counterproductive if I gave it a go.”

“You know,” she lilted, “oddly enough, this is actually working.”

“Seriously?”

“Mm.”

Wait, did she mean…

“You’re already…”

“Yeah. Do you mind?”

Well. Fuck. That explained that breathy quality to her voice. It was a couple of tones deeper than usual, too. “No, no. No, not at all. It’s just… Me telling you how bad I am at this is doing something for you?”

“It’s your voice,” she breathed, and he heard the sheets rustle.

Gold swallowed and felt his face getting warm. “Yeah?”

He’d been so close to falling asleep not five minutes before, and now he was getting hard, listening to his girlfriend touch herself over the phone. God, she was an adventure and a half.

“Mm. Could probably read me the - _ah_ \- read me the phonebook and that’d work just fine.”

The base of his skull started tingling. It was as if her voice resonated in his skull and made it feel electric somehow. It spread all the way up his scalp and down his spine at the same time, and he heard every little hitch in her breathing, now, and every minute creak of her bed.

“You’re talking more than I am. Is that how it’s supposed to go?”

“Say something, then.”

“I don’t know what to say! What do I say?”

He wished he knew. He wished he could do this for her; talk her off and hear her try to stifle those little cries of hers as he pictured her writhing on her bed.

“Well, you know… What you’d do if you were here. That sort of thing.”

“Oh. Well…”

What _would_ he do if he were there and saw her on her bed, in one of his t-shirts, her hand down the front of her panties and maybe the other one creeping up her chest, slowly - 

Wait, no, she wouldn’t be able to hold her phone that way. Just the one down her panties, then.

Fucking hell.

Gold licked his dry lips. “Probably just watch you bring yourself off, to be honest, sweetheart,” he murmured. “If you’d let me.”

A sharp gasp. A strangled noise. Her bed creaked and the sheets moved about. And then she was breathing like a diver come up for air, and he couldn’t believe it.

“Belle?” he tried after listening to her breathe a little while longer.

“Shit,” she hissed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Didn’t know I was into that.”

He made some strange sound of disbelief that came out as a short burst of laughter. “Wait. That did it? You came?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, and he could _hear_ her smile through the phone. “Didn’t, uh… Yeah, like I said. Didn’t know that’d do it. Did you come?”

He hadn’t touched himself even though his body was screaming for him to, because it seemed wrong, somehow. The moment had seemed hers and hers alone, so he hadn’t. Was that bad? He hoped she didn’t mind. “No, I didn’t… I wasn’t -”

“Can I come over?”

The bed creaked under her shifting weight. She was getting up.

“You can always come over, you know that,” he replied, wondering why she’d…

Oh.

“Wait, Belle, not because I -”

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Belle, you don’t have to -”

She hung up.

She was at his front door twenty-three minutes later wearing her favorite pair of skinny jeans, her yellow sweatshirt, and that look he used to mistake for exasperation.

“Darling, you’re going to have to explain to me what the point of phone sex is if you -”

She kissed the sense out of him, then pulled him into his living room, pushed him down on his sofa and sucked him off. He wasn’t sure whether he was actually awake. Was he? Could he be? Her hair fell softly over his thighs, her mouth was doing impossible things to him, and when he came she didn’t stop, pushed him to the edge of consciousness, grabbed his hips and held on tight. When the room stopped spinning and he could speak again, he told her to get into his bedroom, where her thighs clamped tight around his head and her hands grabbed helplessly at his hair and the sounds she was making were amazing.

She didn’t go home, after. They barely had enough sense and strength to crawl under the sheets. Just barely. How long had it been, really? Five days? Five days without making her come. Felt like more. In his bed, they curled up next to each other and just looked. That was all. Gazed. They didn’t touch at all. Didn’t even smile. Those days without her had been like a rubber band stretching. Belle had snapped back to him tonight, and they had crashed, knocking the wind out of each other. Weren’t quite sure what had happened, but knew that it was big.

“Are you alright?” he asked after a while.

She smiled at him. She had her hands tucked flat under her head like a child. “Yeah. Are you?”

He nodded. “Missed you.”

“Missed you too. Won’t have to miss each other much after this week, right?”

“True,” he said, finally returning her smile. Oh, the things they could do. Ice cream on the pier, for one. The sun would glitter on the water during the day, and at night the string lights would take over. Walks in the forest to cool off on hot days, maybe. Picnics in the park, too. She mentioned breaking her last pair of sunglasses last week, maybe she would let him buy her new ones. He didn’t dislike shopping. Not at all. Definitely not with her there. What would she wear all summer? Shorter dresses? Did she tan, or burn?

“What are you thinking about?”

“You. Summer. What are you thinking about?”

“I… Well, you. And how overwhelming this is.”

That was the word. The word he didn’t know he’d been chasing after ever since the night she spilled her heart. That was perfectly it.

“It’s so weird,” she mused, crinkling her nose cutely. “It’s like when you see someone you haven’t seen in years and you’ve missed them so much you can’t help but cry because you’re just so happy to see them, except it’s only been a few days, and we saw each other at work.”

Something changed. It was sudden, and there was no warning. He could see her eyes begin to brim with tears, and the thing that had kept them apart snapped and gave way, allowing him to reach for her and pull her close. She plastered herself to him, grabbed at his shoulders, and he felt her body convulse in a little sob. What on earth? What did he do?

“I’m sorry. I’m not crying, promise,” she sniffled, a hint of laughter in her voice that made him sigh in relief. “Well, I mean, I guess I am getting your pajamas wet with my tears, but I’m not _crying_ , you know? I’m not sad. I’m happy.”

“It’s alright,” he laughed softly, pressing her lovely head close to his chest. “I’d join in if I could. Maybe if you kicked my ankle.”

Or cried for much longer.

“It’s the testosterone,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

“What?”

She pulled away so she could smile at him, wiping away the tears. “Testosterone can inhibit tear production. It’s actually more difficult for you to cry.”

Yeah, not _that_ much more difficult. The longer he looked at her wet, twinkling eyes, the more he sensed that telltale pressure build up. If he hadn’t felt this strange, useless masculine need to be strong for her - whatever that meant - he might have joined in.

But wasn’t it amazing how she’d just turned into a biology teacher right in front of his very eyes?

“Why do you know that?” he asked, smirking as he softly thumped her nose with his index finger.

Belle raised a challenging eyebrow and shot back, “Why don’t you?”

Gold smiled. “Are you really alright, love?”

“Yeah. Promise.”

“Just happy?”

“Just happy.”

It didn’t look like she was lying, so he nodded and smiled back to tell her he believed her. She leaned over him and turned off the light on the nightstand, then tried to find his lips in the dark. His ear, first, which tickled, so she would just have to forgive him for giggling. Then his temple. His jaw. He _knew_ by then her eyes had adjusted, so that kiss to that sensitive spot on his neck was just for him, bless her. Finally, he felt her mouth on his, and with her goodnight kiss on his lips and her head tucked under his chin, he could finally close his eyes and chase sleep.

In the morning, he woke to find her sleeping peacefully with her hair in front of her face and probably in her mouth, too. They’d fallen asleep lying close, but now she was sprawled across just over half of his bed - inconsiderate little star fish. Her t-shirt (his, whichever) had slipped off her shoulder. Gold tried not to laugh at the disheveled state of her and waited patiently for her to join him in the land of the waking. And when she did, and she pulled the hair away from her face, smiled, yawned and stretched and turned on her side so she could keep smiling at him in their comfortable silence, Gold couldn’t find a single reason not to tell her. Not a single one. He reached out to pull a strand of hair she’d missed from between her lips, then touched her cheek. Soft as ever and extra warm from sleep. Belle smiled, closed her eyes, wrapped her smaller hands around his wrist and nuzzled into the palm of his hand.

“Good morning,” he said, hoping she would open her eyes again. Couldn’t tell her with her eyes closed. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t. It would be easier, but it wouldn’t be how it was supposed to go.

She blinked them open again, flashing bright blue at him, making his heart beat faster. God, if he could just wake up to those every day from now on, he would never complain about a single thing ever again.

“It’s too early,” she whined, rolling over on her back.

“Is it?”

She groaned, pushed herself up on her elbows so she could look over his shoulder and fell back down with a smile. “Four past six.”

“Oh? Oh, okay. Yeah, I suppose it is, but…”

She made a sound he interpreted to mean she was listening, but her eyes had fluttered shut again. He needed to see her eyes for this, so he waited. Maybe she’d fall asleep again. Maybe she’d notice his silence and open her eyes to see what was wrong.

“Belle?”

She opened her eyes and frowned in mild concern, her eyes traveling all over his face for clues. Well, now he had to, didn’t he?

“I…”

“If you’re going to take this long to get it out, could you at least tell me if it’s good or bad, first?”

“Good. I think,” he murmured.

She smiled, brushed a stray lock of hair away from his face and softly said, “Good. I’ll wait for that.”

Too late to back out, now, and he was only just starting to realize how terrible an idea this had been. It was painfully early, and he was stealing her precious sleep by dithering like a fucking idiot - or a fucking donut, in her words - and why would he try to say something important as this first thing after waking up, with absolutely no moisture in his mouth to help the words along? Felt. He was felt. He was an actual muppet, and his heart was racing, and if he didn’t finish this soon, he would burst like a confetti-filled balloon and leave a bloody mess all over his bedroom.

She smiled because she thought that would help. It didn’t really, but…

But he had to, now.

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

His stomach was in knots. He could barely breathe. Part of him wanted to look away to spare himself the embarrassment if it was coming, but he couldn’t even blink. Her smile sort of faded away, and her eyes grew wider, wider, and her eyebrows jumped up, and then - Oh, thank God, she flew right into him. Her arms wrapped tight around his shoulders as best she could, her face hot in the crook of his neck, and he felt her grin, but the waterworks had started up again, too.

But this was good, wasn’t it? Happy crying, right?

“Quit making me cry,” she half-sobbed and half-laughed. “I didn’t think you’d say it first and now I’m crying.”

With her body shaking in infectious laughter, Gold finally felt the tension melt away. He rolled over to have her on top of him and ran his hands up and down her back. “I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to say, sweetheart,” he murmured into her ear, smiling as he heard her sniffle and felt her nod. Belle looked at him, now, her hands on his chest, holding up the slight weight of her upper body, a warm smile on her face and tears of mostly laughter making her eyes twinkle in the faint early morning light.

“I love you too,” she said, leaning down to kiss his smiling lips. He crushed her to him, pulled the covers up over their shoulders and knew that he wouldn’t be falling asleep anymore, but he would stay here with her and hold her for hours and hours until it was time to make her breakfast.

Or just get out the cereal.

…

Summer with Belle was almost exactly what he imagined it would be, but better, and more colorful, because his imagination would never be as good as hers. He bought her ice cream on the pier, poured her wine in his garden, watched the sun set with her sun-warmed body in his lap and her fingers in his hair. She wore short skirts and pretty dresses, knew exactly what they did to him, too. On rare occasions, they would have a useless argument about the human condition and the equivocal merits of altruism followed by a passionate fuck against the nearest flat surface the urgency of which took them both by surprise.

One night in early August, they walked the promenade, hand in hand. It was pleasantly busy, not overwhelmingly so. Every little light was lit against the dark purple sky, the air was filled with the smell of baked treats and the ocean, and the moon was rising over the water. Belle was trying to nibble a pink cloud of cotton candy bigger than her head into submission as he watched on, laughing and wondering whether all that sugar would make her kisses taste sweet all night. He had to pitch in at one point, because she pushed the damn thing up to his face to get back at him each time he laughed at her uphill battle. Peeling little strips off with his fingers was much better than having it shoved in his face. Didn’t taste as awful as he thought it would. Nothing did when he was with her.

Then suddenly, a few steps ahead, Gold saw a familiar face he hadn’t seen in a while. He wasn’t as pale as he remembered him, and he’d gotten a much needed haircut, but that grin was exactly the same, save for the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Belle was too busy pulling her hair out of her treat to notice, cursing under her breath. Gold’s instinct was to let go of her hand, but he’d learned to completely disregard his instincts when it came to romance, so what he did instead was hold on tighter, even when the boy’s eyes narrowed and his grin grew to Cheshire Cat proportions. That tank top was much too big for him, and his jeans were tighter than Belle’s. Was that the thing to do, now? God, he couldn’t keep up with these kids anymore.

“Sir! Princess!” his reluctant favorite called out, flicking his cigarette to the concrete and crushing it under his shoe.

Belle held her cotton candy cloud out of the way and looked up. Gold watched her face change from confusion to pleasant surprise as Daniels waved and walked over.

“Hey! Kevin!”

If Belle didn’t mind the nickname, Gold supposed he shouldn’t, either. What authority did he have over this disaster, anyway, outside of school? Weirdly, that realization relaxed him, softened the muscles in his shoulders and dissolved the knot in his throat. It was alright. Just running into an acquaintance, holding his girlfriend’s hand. That was all. He was just a kid. No need to be on guard. Much.

“Evening, Daniels,” he muttered, prompted by Belle suddenly squeezing his hand hard. “Nice night?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.” The boy looked down at where their hands were joined and laughed a deep, knowing laugh. “Nice to know for sure I didn’t waste all that effort.”

“Yeah, about that…” Belle bit her lip and smiled up at him as she swung their hands just a little bit, then turned back to Daniels and said, “We know you tried to push us in the right direction.”

He snorted and shrugged. “ _You_ weren’t the one who needed pushing, miss,” he mumbled, nodding towards him with a roll of the eyes. Gold glared, but only out of habit. An empty reflex. Still hadn’t quite gotten any less fond of the boy, it turned out.

“Why did you bother, Daniels?” he asked.

He ran a thin hand through his hair and shrugged yet again. “Bored.”

“You’re always bored, son,” Gold scoffed. “You were bored before Ms French even started working here, but you never got up to anything like this.”

Daniels made some sort of noncommittal noise and began to shift his weight from one foot to the other. Still just as fidgety, even when he didn’t have to sit still and pay attention to old bores like him for hours on end, day after day.

“Don’t tell me there was a student betting pool,” Gold groaned.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he cried out, stamping his foot just once. “Should have organized one.”

Belle giggled with a mouth full of spun sugar. “I have to say I’m curious as well, Kevin. Do you play matchmaker for your friends, too?”

Daniels got distracted by a screeching seagull halfway through Belle’s first sentence, and Gold had been about to politely say good night and pull Belle along so they could finish their walk, but then the boy sighed dramatically and threw his hands in the air as if in surrender.

“Alright, alright!” he sang, nervously mussing his hair. “Look, the thing is, sometimes if you like someone you shouldn’t, a good thing to do is to help them get off the market before you get in too deep and it starts getting embarrassing. You know?”

Daniels smiled at Belle - a smile he hadn’t seen before. Sort of lopsided and apologetic. Genuine. Was that really it? He couldn’t blame the poor lad for harboring a crush on the woman whose hair he sometimes touched in the middle of the night when he woke up from a nightmare just to make sure she was really there, but what kind of convoluted coping strategy was _that_? Strange boy. Brave, too.

Gold put on a mock scowl, wrapped his arm tightly around Belle’s waist and joked, “I hope you never thought she was flirting. She’s just Australian.”

Belle punched him softly in the arm with a little giggle. Daniels raised his eyebrows at him and laughed in silence as he dug in his jeans pocket for his lighter, shaking his head. He fished a cigarette from behind his ear - flashy git - and placed it between his lips.

“Yeah, sure,” he mumbled around the cigarette, striking the lighter thrice before a flame lit up his face and painted it an eerie orange. “Let’s say I was talking about Princess.”

And he was gone, hands in his pockets, heading towards a group of equally weirdly dressed teenagers congregating outside the arcade up ahead, leaving behind a small cloud of smoke that made Gold want to call after him and ask for a cigarette. The old familiar craving was just strong enough to distract him from the meaning of what the boy had actually said for a few seconds until he realized that Belle had gripped his upper arm and was squeezing it tight.

… Wait.

He looked down at her and found her gaping at him in shock. Her eyes were huge and her mouth was wide open, and… No, wait. What the fuck did he mean by that? Surely not -

“Oh my God!” Belle cried, no longer mute. Her grip on his upper arm grew even tighter and, and she pulled at it excitedly. “Baby! It makes so much sense!”

_Baby?_

Wait, no, one thing at a time.

“No. No, no, no. Belle, no.” Surely he didn’t mean _him_. Gold looked from Belle’s gloriously excited face back to where he’d last seen Daniels. The boy had his arms around two of his mates and swung from their shoulders like a monkey. Tiny as he was, it still threw them off balance, and all three of them nearly fell to the ground, guffawing.

“No, but it makes sense!” Belle repeated, laughing and practically jumping up and down, still clutching his arm with one hand and waving the rest of her cotton candy around dangerously with the other. “That’s why he’s so much worse with you than with anyone else! He’s been trying to get you to notice him all this time!”

Well it fucking worked.

“He’s… He’s joking, Belle,” Gold muttered with a frown. “He’s having us on.”

“Oh, hush,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re hot. Get over it. I’m lucky I got there first.”

“Two strange assumptions, there, dearest,” he sang, putting on an uninterested face in the hopes that she wouldn’t notice his blush. “One; that I would be seduced by a teenage boy, and two; that my romantic life is dictated by some sort of illogical first come, first served -”

Belle’s sugary sweet kiss muffled and magicked away the rest of his words, and he didn’t know what had happened to her candy, but he knew she wasn’t holding it anymore, because all ten of her fingers were deep in his hair. God, he loved her. That familiar heat in the pit of his stomach radiated out and made his entire body tingle. Gold wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her close and kissed her until she dropped back on her heels and smiled.

His lips were sticky, now. They were nowhere near alone, but all he heard was waves crashing, birds calling, and Belle’s voice telling him, “Let’s go home, sunshine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you x1000.


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone shows up at the big pink house on a warm summer night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm just gonna leave this right here, then.
> 
> (Shout-out to CKkitty who left a nice comment about Daniels and unwittingly inspired me to finish this thing I had lying around.)

It was the big pink house. He knew because Fiona lived just a couple of blocks away, and she’d pointed it out a few years ago as they zoomed past on their bikes on the way to the pool. “I swear to God, he lives right there,” she’d said, and he’d looked, and he’d laughed at her for being a crap liar, and then on their way back to Fiona’s, he saw Mr Gold carrying his groceries inside the big pink house, and he apologized.

He’d tried to look at his phone a few times to see what time it was, but his hands were shaking too much to risk another crack in his screen. He’d probably just have done that stupid thing where you check the time but don’t really _see_ it, anyway, like your brain decides to be more rock-like than sponge-like for just a second. It was late, though, probably. Had to be - pitch black on an August night as it was. But the downstairs curtains were edged in warm incandescent light, so someone was home. He was home, and he could ring the doorbell, and he might answer.

And he’d see him standing there with his face swollen from crying and his eyes red, and when he asked him, “Why are you here, Daniels?” he would have to say something, but he would probably start crying again, because that was the kind of overemotional piece of shit he was tonight. Was he really going to do that, then? Was he really going to press that doorbell and cry some more?

He was there because there was no-one else. Fiona wasn’t around, and there was no-one else in this town who had really ever said a sincere word to him. Partly his fault for taking pains to never look like he needed one, but it didn’t matter. He was standing here, now, because somehow, he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. Anyone else. He was standing in front of his old history teacher’s door, wanting to talk and dreading to talk at the same time, shaking and feeling sick.

With a shaky finger, Kevin sealed his fate. He couldn’t decide whether the bright red button in the gaping maw of a brass lion’s head was tacky or cool. He still hadn’t decided when the door opened with an ominous creak, and light spilled out onto the gravel and into his sore eyes.

“Daniels?”

He’d missed that voice. Sent a shiver down his spine. He blinked and squinted against the light, tried to focus on the black shirt in front of him, felt his lips move but knew he wasn’t making a single sound. His mouth was too dry. His brain was too dry. Every last bit of him was too dry, and he was an idiot, and he had to leave, but -

“Come in. You look miserable.”

“No, that’s alright. I’m sorry,” he mumbled to the gravel at his feet, crunching as he shifted awkwardly, trying to make himself even smaller. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll leave, I -”

“Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?”

“No, I’m alright.”

He couldn’t bring himself to look up until he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, gently but firmly pulling him inside. His legs were heavy. Nearly tripped over the threshold. He wasn’t sure whether it was the unwelcome image of his father’s horrified face that suddenly flashed in his mind’s eye, or the fact that someone in this town cared, but whatever it was made his eyes sting with new tears. Once inside, he turned away and quickly wiped them dry on the bottom of his t-shirt. Thank fuck he seemed to have run out of snot on the way over. That was something, at least.

“Company, sweetheart.”

“Really?”

Fuck. Fuck, of course. Kevin was guided into the living room where Ms French lay curled up on the sofa with a book in her lap and a glass of wine in her hand, and his eyes were going blurry again all of the sudden, but he could just see her face go from confusion to pleasant surprise, and then concern. It didn’t help the tears at all. What was he doing here?

She closed her book without looking.

“Kevin!”

He pulled up the hem of his t-shirt again. It was still wet from before, but it would have to do. He heard the telltale sound of a half full glass of wine being plopped on the coffee table, and then suddenly there were arms around him, and there was no stopping it now. He crumbled, sobbed just once and felt much less sick already, but he’d rather have felt sick for the rest of his life than burst into tears in front of his former history teacher while his girlfriend, the English teacher, hugged him close. She was warm and soft and she smelled like wine.

He tried to step out of the hug so he could put himself back together again, but it took a little wriggling to get Ms French to let go, and when she did, and he looked up to see just how confused she looked, he was met with nothing but kindness. So he looked at Mr Gold instead, thinking he would surely be staring daggers at him for his intrusion by now and scare him into getting a fucking grip, but he was standing right where he’d last seen him, forehead deeply wrinkled in concern, eyes on his right upper arm, jaw set.

Kevin quickly tugged his sleeve down a few inches. He could see the man’s brain spin a narrative out of that tiny flash of bruised skin already, heard the cogs turning in his head. It wasn’t what he must have thought it was, but Kevin knew it sure looked like a beating.

“Sit down, lad,” he said, nodding towards the couch. “Tissues, love?”

“I think we’re all out,” replied Ms French.

“You two do a lot of crying?” he joked, the effect somewhat ruined by his little sniffle.

She put a hand on his back to guide him over to the couch, where he realized to his utter dismay that he was still shaking. He thought he’d stopped shaking. He hadn’t. He felt sick again.

“Tell us what happened, Kevin.”

She was sitting next to him now, a hand on his back as he hunched over and stared at the patterns in the shiny wooden floorboards. Mr Gold sat down in the chair opposite, the coffee table between them. He couldn’t bring himself to look up and see the look on his stupidly gorgeous face. Surely now he would look annoyed, now that he was taking up room on his couch, now that he’d made a stupid, useless joke, now that his girlfriend was fussing over him and being very, very tactile.

“Nothing, really,” he managed, trying to sound over it already. “Kinda… Kinda accidentally came out during an argument with my dad. Didn’t stick around after that.”

From the chair opposite came a low, gruff voice, asking him, “Did he hurt you?”

“No,” said Kevin firmly, looking up to brave Mr Gold’s stare, thinking it might convince him he was telling the truth.

The look on his face hit him like an eighteen-wheeler to the gut; eyes narrowed, lips in a thin line, hands gripping the arm rests of his chair like he was restraining himself. Kevin straightened himself reflexively.

“I know what that bruise looks like, but he didn’t hit me. It’s gonna sound like total a cliche but I actually ran into the door on my way out, I swear.”

Bolted right the fuck into it like a startled deer the moment he saw the color drain from his father’s face. He left him slack jawed and white as milk and ran out. He ran for a while, then walked, and ended up here, where Mr Gold now stood and stared holes into his arm, unbelieving and intense. It was terrifying. And hot. And he almost laughed at himself then, for feeling exactly the same way he had back when he was still in high school, being a little shit for attention, thirsting for a sign that the glowering man in front of him liked him just a little bit more than the other kids. One year of college, two fairly serious exes and a handful of random hook-ups later, and his stupid crush had come back full force.

Meanwhile, Ms French was rubbing his back, leaning in close, and he could think of at least a couple of dozen guys who would give at least one limb or non-vital organ to be in his place.

“What happened, exactly?” she asked.

“We were watching TV, and there was… I can’t even remember what it was. This character, turned out she had a girlfriend before she got together with this guy, and my dad said something… stupid. Really stupid. Like, 1970s kinda stupid, you know what I mean? And I tried to explain that he was being an idiot without slipping up, but we started arguing, and it got really intense, and then I… I slipped up and told him I was bi. He was real quiet for a while and then he told me I was no such thing, and I… I ran out.”

Mr Gold stood up and walked over. He pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt with a gentleness that didn’t match the dark, focused look on his face. Kevin looked down at the mark on his arm. Blazing red, a future bruise that would turn dark blue and scary soon. But it was a straight line. Not a handprint.

“Did he push you into the door?”

“No. Didn’t touch me. He wouldn’t.”

There was something in his pitch black eyes that nearly scared him for real. Ms French noticed. She put her hand on Mr Gold’s wrist, gently and silently urged him to let go of his shirt, squeezed, and made the deep lines in his forehead disappear and the color return to his eyes.

“I didn’t know where to go,” Kevin muttered, looking down at his knees. “Fiona’s in Paris, and there’s… I couldn’t think of anyone else. I’m sorry.”

“Kevin, it’s alright. You’re more than welcome here.”

“You need ice on that, Daniels.”

“It’s not that bad, really, it -”

“We still have ice, don’t we, Belle?”

“Don’t think so. Just wrap the peas in a towel.”

As Mr Gold walked off, Ms French turned to him and lowered her voice. “Just let him mother you for a bit. There’s no stopping him. I had a cold last month and you’d have thought I was terminal. Can’t stand the smell of chicken soup now.”

Kevin knew she was _trying_ to whisper, but she wasn’t quite managing it. That was when he had another look at the evidence on the coffee table. Two wine glasses, the bottle a little over half full. Judging from the blush on her face, ‘tipsy’ was probably the right word.

“I interrupted a nice evening, didn’t I?”

“Don’t you worry about it,” she cooed, patting him on the back. “We’re glad you came to us, aren’t we, sweetie?” she called out to Mr Gold, returning from the kitchen.

 _Sweetie?_ Kevin grinned, trying his very hardest not to laugh.

“So. You inherited your brains from your mother, then.”

“He means he’s glad you came here,” she mock whispered, giving him another pat on the back.

“You don’t think I’m an idiot?”

“I never did,” said Mr Gold, handing him what he couldn’t mistake for anything but a repurposed bag of frozen peas, wrapped in a clean tea towel. “Hold this to the bruise. Tell me if it’s too cold. I can get you another towel.”

“It’s fine.”

Mr Gold settled at the other end of the couch, angling his body towards him and Ms French, crossing one leg over the other.

Just then, in his jeans pocket, his phone began to buzz. The sound was obvious, cutting through the momentary silence. They were staring at him now, both of them. She with her weirdly bluer than blue eyes, and he with eyes that still held a little of that anger, or worry of before. It was difficult to tell which it was, and it had taken Kevin by surprise. Clearly, on some subconscious level, he knew that he would be welcome here. But there was a certain intensity to his reaction that he hadn’t expected, and it made him wonder.

He had a son, didn’t he? Had he been through something similar with him? Or did Mr Gold have an occasional asshole for a father growing up, too?

“I don’t wanna talk to him right now.”

“You don’t have to,” decided Mr Gold gruffly.

And then a text. And another one. And each time he, Mr Gold or Princess opened their mouths to try and cobble together some sort of conversation, another text arrived. Kevin sighed and pried his phone out of his pocket. His fingers trembled, and he couldn’t bring himself to unlock it and see.

“I should probably text him I’m alright, but I don’t… I don’t know if I wanna read what he’s…”

He’d lost the ability to finish basic sentences somehow. Good thing he didn’t have to.

“Would you like one of us to check first?” asked Mr Gold.

He didn’t have to think about it, really. The tightness in his throat told him to nod meekly and thrust out his hand without looking at his shaking fingers around the suddenly strangely heavy bit of steel, glass, and wires. Mr Gold’s fingers brushed against his, cool against his hotter skin, and then he was free of the thing. Kevin leaned back with a deep sigh, bouncing his knee up and down anxiously as he waited for the verdict.

Took a little longer than he expected. When he looked over, Mr Gold was frowning at his phone, turning it over in his hand as if looking for a big red button or something.

“What compelled you to buy this useless thing? You do it, sweetheart.”

Princess reached over him to snatch it from her apparently technophobic boyfriend’s hand with a fond smile and teased, “It’s a BlackBerry, not rocket science.”

“Fewer buttons on a rocket.”

“But you’re good at pushing those,” came her mumbled reply, one corner of her mouth drawing up into a little smirk.

Though his stomach was in knots, Kevin couldn’t help but grin. Christ, those two. Was this what they did all day, then? Bicker affectionately over a few glasses of wine in their respective ridiculous accents? Cause they ought to let in an audience and charge if this was a regular occurrence.

Peering at his phone, Ms French looked far less serious than Mr Gold but still concerned, brow creased in concentration, lips pursed.

“I think you might want to read them,” she said softly after a few tense moments, the lines on her face smoothing out for a comforting smile as she put his phone in the palm of his hand.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. He just didn’t trust himself not to start blubbering again, whatever it said. Sitting there in their warm, cozily lit living room, the evidence of a nice little evening in all around them (the wine, Mr Gold’s jacket slung over the back of a chair near the door, one of Ms French’s heels kicked under the same chair and the other a few feet away, a box of matches and some unlit candles on the fireplace mantel) Kevin had slowly begun to feel like the world’s biggest coward. His dad hadn’t hit him. Hadn’t disowned him. Just told him his identity was a lie, that was all. And well, it was shitty. It made him want to throw up. It felt like a worse betrayal than outright disgust.

But was it really worth bothering these two over?

Kevin breathed in deep and tried to exhale and banish whatever it was that made his insides feel like they were twisting and turning in time with his heartbeat, then began to read.

_I’m so sorry. I love you. You’re who you say you are and I’m an asshole. You don’t have to come home tonight if you don’t want to but please let me know you’re safe and I don’t have to call the police. I love you. I’m sorry._

By the time he’d finished reading, his stomach felt heavy again and his eyes were filled with tears. Couldn’t breathe deep anymore.

“Belle? You said it would be alright for him to -”

“Yeah, it’s alright,” Kevin hurried, his voice almost cracking. “They’re good texts. He’s sorry. I’m just…”

“How do you feel, Kevin?”

“Embarrassed.”

“Sweetie, why would you be embarrassed?” she cooed. And there was her warm little hand rubbing circles on his back again.

The words choked him. He forced them out. “Cause I ran.”

“You did what you felt you had to,” she said.

Kevin shrugged and made a vague sound that could have meant anything.

“What about your mum, Kevin?”

“She’d be alright with it, probably. Haven’t talked to her in a while.”

“Divorce?”

“Yeah.”

Ah, fuck. He kept making himself more pitiful, didn’t he? There was a strange look between the two of them, then. Kevin knew it was meaningful, but he couldn’t decipher it. A long look with furrowed brows and then a sad little smile on Ms French’s part.

“You can stay here tonight,” Mr Gold said, turning to him. “We have a guest room. You don’t have to go back.”

Though the idea made him feel giddy in an instant and every inch of him wanted to say yes, Kevin sniffled, “No, I won’t bother you any more than I already have,” wiping the last of his tears on the back of his hand.

“Daniels, don’t be ridiculous,” Mr Gold replied, his voice a deep, benevolent bark. “I can drive you home any time you like. Don’t make up your mind right now.”

Kevin felt his laughter rising up again, fizzling in his belly. In the time he had spent with these two so far, he had been told that he looked miserable, that he bought useless things, that he was being ridiculous, and yet he couldn’t think of a single instance he had felt more warm and welcome in his life.

Mr Gold’s grumbled half-insults had never worked on him. Not in the way he intended them to, anyway.

“Alright. Be nice to sit here for a little while, maybe. Thank you.”

“Great!” cheered Ms French, pulling him into a less than elegant half hug, making him smile. “Stay as long as you like.”

“Text that neanderthal of a father of yours to call off the cavalry. I’ll get you something to drink.”

“Oh my God,” Princess groaned as Mr Gold lifted himself out of the couch. “Honey, lower your hackles and stop growling. The guy’s not even in the room.”

Mr Gold shrugged. “It’s an involuntary physiological response to idiots.”

“That’s still his dad you’re talking about!”

“Nah, it’s alright,” Kevin said, waving his hand and dismissing Ms French’s sweet concern. “It’s true. He’s been an idiot lately.”

“Hear that, darling?” teased Mr Gold, smirking like the devil himself right before disappearing into the hallway. “It’s _alright_.”

Ms French sighed and rolled her eyes, but there was a great big grin on her face that made him want to grin, too.

Kevin texted a quick _I’m alright and with a friend_ to his dad, then silenced his phone completely. Just for a little while. Just a few moments to pretend this never happened. That he was just here for no reason other than to spend time with old acquaintances. Or friends, like he’d said in that text. Not because he ran from what probably would have been an unpleasant but short, easily resolved conversation.

From the kitchen came the sounds of a stove clicking to life and the clanging of pots and pans. Kevin looked at Ms French quizzically, silently begging an explanation as to why a glass of water required so much noise.

She smirked and pulled her legs up, curling them up under her, wriggling into a more comfortable position in her corner of the couch. “Probably making hot chocolate,” she explained.

“Seriously?”

“Well I bloody hope he is! If it’s chicken soup, I’m gonna throw up.”

The sweet, strong smell of melting chocolate wafted in and filled his chest with warmth.

“Fucking hot chocolate,” Kevin whispered absently, unaware he’d cursed until Ms French giggled. He reached for a cushion from the other end of the couch to hug to his chest. “You weren’t kidding when you said he was gonna mother me. He’s such a… a…”

“A big, faking, sensitive, nurturing softie,” she said, nodding seriously. “Good to have someone else witness this, actually. Sometimes it feels like I’m hallucinating him. People are starting to catch on that he’s not as bad as he’s made himself out to be, but not quick enough to stop asking me weird questions like, does he smile, or does he ever wear jeans or stuff like that.”

Kevin snorted, nodding understandingly.

“You know he threatened to peel my face off and mail it to me once. That was probably the most graphic one, and he made sure not to say it during school hours, not that I’d have told principal Higgins or anything. And another time, he told me it might be a good idea to stop acting the court jester when he was holding sharp objects. And it was a _pen_. That’s not even that sharp.”

“Crikey. I didn’t know he got that… uh… creative. He never scared you?”

“Nah,” he replied, shaking his head. “Maybe the first time, but then I caught him smiling right after. Like, this tiny little smile. Probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. I don’t think anyone else ever noticed.”

Ms French’s smile was just a little too knowing, lasted just a little too long, and Kevin was suddenly and painfully aware that he probably sounded a little too fond of her fucking _boyfriend_. So he swallowed the lump in his throat and put on a bright smile, hoping he wasn’t about to blush, of all things.

“And anyway, after you came along, he kinda stopped being so intense.”

“Yeah?” she almost mewled, her eyebrows raised in the most adorable hopeful look.

“It’s kinda like you softened him. Not even like he was holding back to make you like him or something, more like he just forgot to be the ruthless jerk he thought he had to be.”

She got a pensive little smile on her face and looked down into her lap for a moment, drawing patterns on her sweatpants (those were a strange sight on her, actually) with her finger. The smell of chocolate got stronger. Kevin heard Mr Gold stirring whatever he was concocting with a wooden spoon in the kitchen.

“I stayed in his spare room, too,” Ms French said softly, dreamily. “It’s _our_ spare room now, I suppose, but back then it was his. This was before we got together. I was really upset one night - doesn’t matter why - and I just… gravitated here. Kind of like you did. We got really drunk, and -”

There was a sudden pause when she must have realized her little anecdote didn’t sound as innocent as she’d assumed. Kevin smirked and wiggled his eyebrow, because when was he ever going to get another chance to fluster his tipsy ex-teacher?

“And nothing happened!” she gasped, eyes wide as saucers as she reached over to playfully shove the palm of her hand in his shoulder. “Oh my God! I wouldn’t be telling you about _that!_ Nothing happened! We drank and talked and then I passed out in the spare room. That’s it. That’s the anecdote. I’m done talking now.”

Her face had gone red, and her lips were twisting as she tried not to giggle.

“Is that the third bottle?” he teased, nodding towards the bottle of wine on the coffee table in front of them.

“Nah. We were gonna watch TV, but then he remembered he still had to water his roses, so he got me my book and poured me a glass cause he knew he was gonna be a while. Hence the head start.”

Roses? The man who had been mythologized by anxious local middle schoolers as some sort of heartless boogeyman to bravely face in high school was not only currently in his kitchen making hot chocolate from scratch, but had plied his girlfriend with wine and literature so he could water the roses with a clear conscience? _His_ roses?

Kevin bit his tongue for a second so as not to fall victim to the giggles he felt creeping up on him. Too many pet names. Too many loving, lingering looks. Far too many soft spots revealed tonight. He kind of loved them both.

“I’m glad you guys are doing well.”

“You’re so sweet,” she murmured, giving him a cute half smile. “How’s college going?”

“Fine, I guess. Going back next month.”

“What’s your major?”

Ah, shit. Kevin coughed, shrugged, drummed his fingers on his thighs and when he realized that this wasn’t exactly a question you generally spent more than one second answering, he lowered his voice to a murmur and pleaded, “Don’t tell him when he gets back.”

“History?” she whispered excitedly, leaning in closer.

He forced a little nod and quickly, out of the corner of his eye, checked to see if Mr Gold hadn’t come back from the kitchen and overheard.

“But can I tell him later?”

“As long as I’m not here to see him be smug about it.”

Because somehow this was way more embarrassing than that time he ran into these two on the promenade, gulls screeching overhead, when something (insanity, probably) came over him to make him practically confess his crush outright. Kevin wasn’t sure if Mr Gold had gotten the message then, but Ms French looked like she had, and surely she would have told him.

It was surprisingly easy to get it out. He figured the man would always assume he was full of shit first rather than take anything he said at face value. But this? No. Suggesting he’d totally hit it would never be even remotely as awkward as being caught sneaking in his footsteps.

“I get it,” she giggled. “Spent a little too much time acting bored in his class for him not to gloat about the apparent 180, right?”

“Well, yeah, but I’m pretty sure he knew I was paying attention all along. I just… don’t want it confirmed like _that_.”

Ms French, still grinning like he’d just told her next week’s winning lottery numbers, opened her mouth to say something but froze abruptly when the floorboards creaked under Mr Gold’s feet. Kevin twisted around just in time to see him entering the room, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. Didn’t have much of an effect, that glare, carrying two huge mugs of steaming hot chocolate as he was.

“What’s that look?” Mr Gold growled. “What’s she been telling you?”

“Nothing! I’m used to you giving me detention, not hot chocolate, that’s all,” he replied, taking the spotless white mug from him.

“Yes. Well. I’m used to you giving me stress headaches.”

“Was I that bad?”

“No,” he sighed, handing Ms French the other mug. She smiled at him with an almost nauseatingly loving look in her eyes and whispered thanks.

“I wasn’t?”

Mr Gold shrugged and sat down in the opposite chair again. No hot chocolate for him?

“You were never mean-spirited. And you did settle down when I told you to. You were just…”

“A pain in the ass.”

“If you will.”

“Sorry. It was fun, getting on your nerves. I know it was juvenile, but there’s just something really satisfying about getting to someone who acts like… like… I don’t know. Like you.”

From Ms French’s corner of the couch came a soft sound, almost a laugh. Kevin turned to her and saw her staring at her boyfriend, smiling knowingly, nodding slowly.

They drank their chocolate and talked about meaningless things. Princess punctured awkward silences with anecdotes that made Mr Gold grumble and smile at the same time. It was interesting to see him so conflicted - charmed by her laughter and alarmed by her openness the same time as she freely told Kevin of the time he unwittingly bought her roses from her father’s shop, and the time they were so drunk she tried to unlock the wrong apartment and he kept telling her to try another key, and that time they got distracted while making dinner (she didn’t say why, but she did blush and Mr Gold did frantically shake his head when he thought Kevin wasn’t looking, so he had _some_ idea) and ruined a brand new frying pan utterly and completely.

While Princess talked, Kevin smiled and laughed, but he felt like an intruder whenever he got caught in the crossfire of the looks they were shooting one another. By the time Ms French was starting to hide her little yawns and the next silence washed over them, despite how weird it felt to pose the question, Kevin felt guilty enough to turn to Mr Gold and ask him, “Would it be alright if I smoke in your back yard?”

Just to give them a moment alone while he decided whether to head back home tonight.

“Go ahead,” he replied with a faint smile, lifting himself from his chair with a stifled groan. “I’ll show you the way.”

Ms French stood up too. “I think I’ll head upstairs and read for a bit, if you don’t mind. Behave, you two.” Then she turned to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Hope you stay, Kevin. Good night.”

“Good night, Ms French.”

“Belle’s fine.”

Kevin returned her smile and nodded. “Good night, Belle.”

Mr Gold led him out into the back yard, then called out, “Darling, wait,” and headed back inside.

It smelled of roses out here. It was just warm enough for a t-shirt. A thick blanket of clouds covered the sky and had kept the day’s summery heat from floating up and away. No stars, though, but that seemed like a fair trade-off.

Through the window in the door, all the way down the hall, Kevin saw Ms French waiting on the second step of the staircase for Mr Gold to catch up. She smiled and cupped his cheeks in her hands, gazing down sweetly through half lidded eyes. She leaned in and gave him a long kiss. His hands were on her hips, squeezing, bunching the fabric.

Kevin smiled. They kind of made his heart ache, those two, but in a nice way, he supposed. Like, he’d definitely vomit if it were anyone else.

Thoroughly kissed, Mr Gold let his sleepy girlfriend make her retreat. Kevin quickly looked away before he caught him looking, quickly scanning the area for a place to sit. There, pushed up against the back of the house, was a wooden bench that was good enough for him.

Mr Gold joined him there a moment later, closing the door behind him very quietly. The bench creaked under the added weight as he settled himself at the other end, watching him with a strange sort of interest as he pulled a cigarette from the crumpled pack in his pocket.

“Do you want to talk about your dad?”

“No. Do you wanna talk about yours?”

Mr Gold huffed. Huffing had always been as close to a genuine laugh as he could get from the guy. Kevin smiled and wondered why he was staring at him now, eying his cigarette so intently. It took a slightly louder than normal intake of breath for Kevin to realize that maybe, just maybe…

“Want one?” he asked, raising a single questioning eyebrow.

“Ah, fuck it,” he growled, taking the cigarettes and his lighter from his proffering hand. “Been a while.”

“How long?”

“Seven years.”

“Crap. Now I feel bad for offering.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled around his cigarette, striking his unreliable lighter not once, not twice, but five times before the flame crackled up and stayed. “I have a spine. One cigarette won’t extract it from me.”

“So is Ms French gonna be upset if she finds out?”

“Don’t think so,” he replied with a smirk, blowing out a long curl of smoke. “Seeing as I’m not twelve and she’s not my mother.”

“I’ll keep your secret anyway.”

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s not a secret,” he replied, giving him that look that made him want to… God, do anything out of the ordinary to unsettle him. Like bring a snail to class. Or ask him if he liked Ms French when they both knew fully well she could walk in and overhear at any moment. Or pretend to fall asleep whenever he went off on another historical tangent that was actually quite interesting. This stupid attractive look with those irresponsibly gorgeous eyes and that smug smirk that just screamed -

“Just let me have this one thing, man,” Kevin sighed, forcing down his mischievous grin. “It’s all I have. It’s not like I’m getting a kiss out of this.”

His dark eyes widened. Shock, clear as day. And Kevin couldn’t hold back his grin anymore. Mr Gold took it for a sign that he was joking and shook his head disapprovingly.

“Still trying to get the gold in Olympic piss-taking?”

“Oh, just be flattered!” Kevin replied. “If you can’t even handle me liking you, how the hell did you come to terms with _her_ liking you?”

“I haven’t. I pretend,” he muttered, leaning back and making the bench creak again. Kevin snorted, rolling his eyes so dramatically it nearly hurt, prompting Mr Gold to sigh and quietly admit, “Alright. Fine. Nowadays it’s only two parts pretending, eight parts empirical evidence.”

“Good to hear.”

Mr Gold blessed him with the flicker of a smile, then. Quick but genuine. Made him feel warm like he did after the first shot of tequila on a Friday night. A cricket in the nearby rosebush began to chirp, and when Mr Gold turned his head to look off into the distance, Kevin let himself stare for a moment.

He’d rolled up his sleeves at some point during the evening. He wished he’d noticed at the time, but then again - might have been a bit too much for him to handle. His hair looked so fucking soft it made him wonder just how expensive his conditioner must have been. When he inhaled, his cheeks hollowed more than he felt they needed to, which was weird, but not unattractive.

“You have a son, right?” he asked after a quiet moment.

He took a few seconds to reply, the end of his cigarette burning bright orange against the night sky as he inhaled. Then, with smoke curling out of his nose, he nodded yes.

“Does he look like you?”

“Not much.”

“Never mind, then.”

And he laughed. A genuine laugh that felt a billion times better than that little smile of his moments before. Threw his head back, even, to laugh up at the clouds. Kevin felt proud, and warm, and brave and excited. It was kind of liberating, being this open about his attraction. He didn’t believe him, anyway, right? God, it felt good to get it out.

“You’re really dedicated to this bit of yours, aren’t you? Anyway, he’s too old for you,” Mr Gold said, his eyes wet with laughter. “And he has a girlfriend.”

“Figures, with my luck. You know, it’s just… You looked so angry when I told you what happened, I thought maybe your son might…”

When Mr Gold looked at him in search of the rest of that sentence, Kevin put his cigarette back between his lips, demonstratively. _You’re gonna have to figure out the rest_ , he confirmed silently that way.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, not to my knowledge. I suppose I just…”

A long drag, a shrug, a deep sigh, and finally, “I’ve learned my lessons, as a father. I have no patience for men who haven’t.”

“Oh.”

So it was like some kind of weird projection thing. All that simmering rage under the surface, the insults, the _glaring_. All of it was for himself. It was crazy how open he was being. The air between them felt delicate, intoxicatingly so. Like he could say the wrong thing at any moment and startle him back into hiding. He would put on a scowl and call him something mildly insulting and that would probably be the last ever sincere moment they would spend together.

“You and your son… Are you close?”

Mr Gold looked away at his roses, his lips spreading into a minuscule smile. “Yeah. We’re good now.”

“That’s nice. My dad and I, we’ll… we’ll be alright, too.”

He wasn’t ready for the way he looked at him then. He shifted on the creaky wooden bench, turned his body towards his. One arm over the back of the bench, the other tapping ashes to the grass, he pinned him down with keen eyes moving over every inch of his face, scanning it, reading it like a page in a book. Kevin felt his stomach twist under his scrutiny.

When he opened his mouth to speak, he expected skepticism. Doubt. Another growled insult directed at someone who wasn’t even there. Not what he actually said, voice deep and gruff, accent suddenly much stronger than he’d ever heard it.

“You should quit smoking, you know. Bad for you. Bet you started young. Sensitive kid, too clever for his own good, trying to look hard to compensate for being an easy target in all other ways. Yeah?”

Stunned into silence, Kevin gave a weak nod. He started when he was thirteen. He was nineteen now.

“Cut your losses. You’ve got yourself a couple of years of this nonsense left before you’re gonna sound like a punctured accordion after a wee bit of exercise.”

“What’s with the accent all of the sudden?” he chortled. “Nicotine bring it out or what?”

“Ah, bugger off,” he growled, holding back obvious laughter behind an embarrassed grin.

He knew what he had to do, then. Felt it in his bones. This evening had been awful before, and now it was perfect, and if he stayed the night, then morning would ruin it. Mornings always ruined everything. So Kevin would take this evening, wrap it up safe, keep it close to his heart and go home to face his dad, who loved him. Who was sorry. Who was a complete idiot, but was willing to learn. Always had been. He would go home.

But not yet.

“Alright, I’ll stop smoking,” he decided, stubbing out his cigarette on the edge of an empty ceramic planter next to the bench. “But _you_ should marry her.”

“I know.”

Kevin froze in place for a second. Another unexpected reply. He was trying to tease, that was all, but when he looked over with a cocked eyebrow, he found Mr Gold looking strangely serene.

“You know? Just out of interest and for future reference, maybe… how? How do you know?”

“Because we might as well not.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Things are perfect now. If we got married, nothing would change.”

“So you’re not considering it?”

“Course I am. Have been for a while.”

“You’ve been considering it, but you don’t feel the need?”

“I do feel the need.”

Kevin stared him with open skepticism. “Yeah, I’m trying here man, I really am, but I don’t get why you don’t just marry her if you really want to.”

Mr Gold sighed deeply and stared off into the night sky. “It’s like having a really nice bottle of champagne stashed away, but the regular swill is so nice, there’s really no need.”

“ _Need?_ You didn’t need to wear a three piece suit to work every damn day but that didn’t stop your handsome ass from doing it anyway.”

“Marriage is not a suit,” he growled, struggling against a smile.

“It’s not a bottle of champagne either.”

Unless… Oh, God. Kevin groaned.

“Don’t tell me you’re waiting for a special occasion, like Valentine’s Day or Christmas or something. Cause I didn’t think you were _that_ sappy.”

“I’m not!” he gasped, clutching his chest in exaggerated offense. “I just mean it’s a really nice bottle of champagne, but we don’t need it.”

“But you want to drink it.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not waiting for a specific moment.”

“No.”

“And you’re not scared she’s gonna say no.”

Mr Gold’s eyes went absolutely huge for a moment, like he hadn’t even considered she might. Or worse - that he had, and that he didn’t appreciate the suggestion one bit. Kevin’s heart dropped straight down his chest and into his stomach, suddenly terrified that this was the line. That he’d crossed it.

“You seem awfully invested in this, son.”

“I’m not. I just think your reasoning is weird, that’s all. You've been together for like what, two years?” 

“Year and a half, almost.”

“The way you look at each other. It hasn’t changed at all. Not that I was… looking at you looking at her or something. It was just kind of obvious sometimes. And I just think, maybe, if there _are_ reasons for two people to get married - and I mean other than practical ones - it seems like… I don’t know. You seem good for each other. Why not, I guess. If you wanna, and there aren’t really any reasons not to, then I just don’t see why you shouldn’t.”

Mr Gold had been watching him intently, listening to his every word, making him almost stumble over them, and now his silence was unnerving.

“Did that make sense?” he asked when the silence became too painful, a nervous tremble to his voice he wished he hadn’t detected.

“Are you fishing for an invite? Cause you’re two years away from getting anything other than virgin rum and cokes from any hypothetical open bars.”

Kevin smiled, and when Mr Gold returned it, he felt himself melt a little bit. That was the end of that conversation, then. He could light another cigarette and try to draw out this mood a little longer. But how could it get any better? Why stay and ruin it?

“Could you drive me home, Mr Gold?”

“Sure? You don’t have to go.”

“I want to.”

He was subjected to another scrutinizing look, then, like he was trying to stare through his skull and read his mind. _I want to go home_ , Kevin thought, just in case it was true, and the man was in there with him. _I want to stay here all night, but that would ruin it, so I want to go home._

“Now?”

“Now.”

Another flicker of a smile, and he nodded. “I’ll tell Belle, and then we’ll go.”

In his huge, ridiculously imposing car, Kevin wanted to cry again. Or maybe not. It felt weird, whatever it was. It was a pressure inside his chest, right in the middle of his torso. Like he’d swallowed a white hot lightbulb or something. It radiated. He pulled at his seatbelt, tried to make more room to breathe, but it didn’t help much. It probably just made him seem nervous. Unsure about going back.

Kevin glanced over and their stares crossed. Orange lights and shadows passed over his angular face as he drove slow through their sleepy little town. He didn’t look tired at all. That was one thing he didn’t have to feel guilty about, at least.

“You said you were embarrassed you ran,” said Mr Gold softly, turning away to look at the road ahead again. He licked his lips and continued, “Don’t. I know cowardice. That wasn’t it.”

The pressure was in his throat now. It made him sound like he was going to start bawling again when he replied, “We could have talked it out then and there if I hadn’t -”

“If he hadn’t pushed you away,” he barked. The pressure in his ribcage pulsed along with his words. “Your father fucked up. This isn’t your mistake to fix. Now, you say he didn’t put his hands on you -”

“He didn’t!”

“- and I believe you. I wouldn’t be driving you back there if I didn’t. And it’s up to you if you want to forgive him for what he said to you, but don’t you even for a single bloody second think that you did anything wrong.”

Fuck, there came the tears again, clouding his vision, making the world nothing but a blur of dark skies and orange street lights. He rubbed the tears away so he could see him again. His jaw clenched, his brow deeply creased, hands tight around the wheel.

“Wasn’t cowardly,” he added quietly, the tension fading from his face somewhat as they came to a standstill at the lights at the crossroads leading to the other side of town.

Red light. Time was stretching. There was no one around at this hour. Lights out everywhere, no traffic. Just the two of them in the darkness of his car. It was dark enough to be brave. Or stupid. Or both. What fueled the fire even more was the knowledge that in a week or two, he would be miles away from this town. He might not even see him ever again. Right?

Kevin’s heart began to thud a heavy rhythm in his hollow chest. His palms were sweaty. He bit his tongue sharply in one last attempt to wake up from whatever had come over him, but all it did was hurt like a bitch.

Fuck it.

“Tell Princess I’m sorry.”

“Why? She had a bloody brilliant time trying to embarrass me with those anecdotes I fully expect you to forget right this instant.”

But he didn’t look over. He had to look over before the pressure tore him apart from the inside out. Kevin stayed perfectly still and stared, willing with all of his heart for him to turn so he could…

“Daniels?”

There it was. Those eyes that had almost stopped haunting him this year.

Kevin lunged, the seatbelt cutting into his chest as he strained against it to reach and push their lips together lightning fast. It was a quick, hard kiss, with his hand clutching at his shoulder, his eyes clenched shut so as not to see the man’s horrified face. His exit strategy amounted to literally pushing himself away from him and sitting back stiff in his seat, hands gripping his knees, squeezing to the point of pain.

The worst and best decision he had ever done. He wouldn’t take it back for the world. His heart raced. His blood boiled. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_ , but exhilarating and perfect, and fuck.

Fuck. _Fuck_. He was stuck in here. The light was still red. When he risked a quick glance to see if he was about to be shouted to within an inch of his life, he found him slack jawed and frozen.

The light turned green.

But he didn’t move.

“Sorry,” Kevin breathed. “Closure.”

“Closure. Right.”

Mr Gold turned his attention back to the road, but not really, because the light was still very green, and he was still very much not moving an inch. He was wide-eyed, and it was difficult to tell but his face was definitely red, his lips parted in shock. _Lips he had kissed._ Kevin swallowed and looked away.

“Probably should have waited until we were in front of my house or something. This is… awkward.”

Oh, God. _Probably should have waited?_ He shouldn’t have fucking done it at all! What was wrong with him? How could he have kissed his ex-teacher, his very straight and very taken ex-teacher, and still not have reached the absolute peak of stupidity yet? Could he just climb this mountain of stupid forever, then? He should fling himself off the side of Mt. Fuckwit and spare everyone the embarrassment.

“Awkward?” came a low rumbling voice, barely audible over the engine as Mr Gold set the car in motion again. “Fucking hell, Daniels,” he laughed.

 _Laughed._ Oh thank God, he was laughing. And not in the way he used to when he was about to berate him for five minutes straight. His laughter melted the tension down to nothing, and Kevin could breathe deep again, now. Deep, and fast, until he started laughing too, and he could feel his body relax for the first time since he’d gotten into this massive, showy car with him.

“Or maybe it’s good we got it out of the way,” he dared joke.

“I didn’t know it was _in_ the way.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got blinders superglued to your face, so…”

“You sound like - … Just be quiet and forget this ever happened.”

Kevin grinned and leaned his head against the window, letting the vibrations lull him into a strange, content calm, secretly and very quietly hoping that Mr Gold didn’t know his way around this part of town. Just to stretch the moment a little longer.

“Not a chance, sir.”

…

Gold closed the car door very quietly, then realized there was no need. The downstairs lights were on. He’d turned them off before he left to take Daniels home, so Belle must have gone downstairs again to wait for his return. How sweet. He smiled to himself as he unlocked the front door, then felt the weight of what had just happened drop back down onto his shoulders with a sudden force that almost made him drop his keys to the floor.

How had he not seen that coming? Stupid question. He was deaf. Blind. The works. That’s why. Belle knew that, of course, and Belle would tell him he was an incorrigible donut and ask him why he didn’t keep his bloody distance, although to be fair, if he’d tried to put more distance between them in the car, he would have had to hang out of the window and risk getting his skull cracked open by a passing car.

Dread overcame him. Made him feel cold and nauseous as he walked into his sitting room and saw Belle in her yellow night dress, a blanket over her curled up legs and a book in her lap.

“Hey! You’re back!” she sang, grinning warmly and stretching her arms out towards him. “How did it go?”

“Oh, fine.”

Gold forced a smile and made his way over to her. He leaned down to kiss her cheek, which was probably what tipped her off. Her buzz seemed to have worn off. She gave him a strong, questioning look, eyebrows pushed together close.

“What’s wrong? Did you get into it with his father?”

“No,” he sighed, settling himself next to her, folding his hands in his lap. “I didn't have to. He was crying when he opened the door. Think he might have learned his lesson.”

“What’s wrong, then? There’s something wrong.”

Gold sighed and pushed his hands through his hair, pulling it back from his face and letting it fall back when he felt Belle’s hand on his wrist, gently tugging his hand into her lap so she could hold it.

“Daniels… kissed me.”

She made a high pitched sound, and gone were her warm hands around his when she slapped her palms to her cheeks in an impromptu recreation of The Scream. What on earth?

“Not quite the reaction I was expecting,” he muttered darkly, more than just a little confused.

“He _kissed_ you?” she squealed, ridiculously wide-eyed. “On the _lips?_ ”

Did she… Was she really… Did she think it was cute? Gold jerked his head back and checked to see if she hadn’t finished the bottle in his absence after all, but it was still at the same level. 

“He asked me to apologize in his stead, but I see he needn’t have worried about you.”

“Tell me everything!” she cried, scrambling up on her knees on the sofa and letting her book fall to the floor.

“Belle! There's nothing to tell! We were at the lights, there was no-one else around, and he apologized and kissed me.”

She crawled closer to him, her hands on his thigh, her face the very picture of glee. “On the lips?”

“Yes! On the lips! What is wrong -”

“You didn't see it coming?”

“If I had seen it coming,” he muttered with a clenched jaw, turning away from her beautiful but utterly confounding grin, “I would have dodged. And I don’t understand what’s so amusing, to be honest.”

There was a moment of silence in which the mood deflated like an old balloon. Belle’s warm little hands left his thigh as she sat back and offered a soft, “Oh.”

Gold wanted to take back the last thing he’d said. It had wiped the smile off her face, and now she looked lost and a little guilty. He wanted her to smile again. Quite desperately so. He reached over to cover her bare knee with his colder hand, squeezing fondly.

“I’m sorry, baby. I misread your mood. You're upset.”

“Not upset, darling,” he sighed. “It’s alright. Just a little shocked, that’s all.”

“But you knew he liked you. He practically told you that day, and the way he looked at you was pretty obvious to me.”

“To you, perhaps. When you went upstairs earlier, out in the garden, he… I knew he was flirting, but I thought he was taking the piss.”

“Oh sweetie, come here,” she cooed, scooting closer and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Gold let himself melt in her familiar embrace. “Sincerity really stumps you, doesn’t it? Why can’t you just accept it when someone expresses an interest?”

Gold breathed in deep. The smell of her - wine and a touch of her perfume - made him feel so at peace and at home that he wasn’t that bothered anymore. It was just lips, in the end, wasn’t it? _Belle’s_ lips weren’t just lips, but that didn’t change the fact that everything was alright, and there was no reason to grumble about it quite so much.

Except they had this little game, now, and whenever he grumbled, Belle wrapped herself around him and cooed and cuddled and petted until he couldn’t keep up the glum face anymore. A little challenge for her relentless optimism, a lapful of her love for him. It was an excellent arrangement.

So he rested his head on her shoulder and growled softly. With her arms around him and her long, soft hair falling between his open shirt collar and the sensitive skin of his neck, everything was alright.

“Shouldn't you be happy I never pick up on it?” he mumbled into her clavicle, wrapping his arms around her waist.

Belle laughed silently, making him shake along with her. It felt nice. Made him smile, but he made sure she didn’t see it.

“Like you'd run off with someone else if you knew they fancied you? I just want you to know when you're being complimented, that's all. You need to hear it.”

“I have you. That’s all I need. Just about all I can handle, actually.”

“Well, I think it can’t hurt, and I’m gonna tell you from now on. Whenever I catch someone flirting with you or checking you out, I’m gonna tell you. I’m not gonna be subtle about it either.”

“Oh, God,” he groaned, nudging the shell of her ear with his nose playfully. “Spare me.”

“So grumpy! Are you really that upset? He’s a good kid. He’s in college. It’s not like he’s going to tell anyone.”

“No, I’m not upset, and I don’t care about the kiss, exactly, I just…”

It only came to him then, what it was that bothered him so. It hit him right in the middle of his chest, pushing the air out of his lungs in a surprised little huff of a laugh. “I just thought I was… being fatherly.”

More than he realized. More than he admitted to the boy himself back in the garden, in his own roundabout way, sitting in cigarette smoke and a fragrant cloud of roses.

Belle slipped her fingers in his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. “You were. Kevin just wasn’t being very filial, that’s all. You did well.”

Oh, he loved her so much. She was so warm, so sweet, so pliant as he gathered her in his arms and pulled her onto his lap.

“You know, the waitress last week wasn’t being daughterly either,” she teased in a deep tone that sent a pleasant shiver down his spine. “You remember? When we were out with Margaret and Alice. Poor girl was checking you out, clear as day. Why d’you think I put your hand on my thigh when she brought the drinks?”

“You’ve always liked it there on other occasions,” he mumbled against her soft skin, smirking a little bit.

“Well, that’s true, but -”

“What about you, hm? All the looks you get? The men who come up to you when I leave you on your own for more than ten seconds?”

“Oh, I know,” she cooed, wrapping her arms tight around his neck. “Such a waste of time for everyone involved. If only people had a way of knowing we were taken. Like a visual clue. Mm?”

A clue. Oh, dear God, _that_ was a clue. Gold froze in her embrace, and how glad was he that she couldn’t see his eyes pop open to the size of the fucking moon, because that was a clue, and he knew it. He’d caught it, for once in his life. He felt it in the pit of his stomach, burning hot, melting his thawing limbs so that he could pull her closer and mask his shock.

Belle took his silence for ignorance, which was fair enough. She laughed softly, stroking the back of his head. “My sweet, oblivious baby,” she crooned. “What am I gonna do with you?”

Could she feel his heart thud in his chest, he wondered? She was hugging him so close now, her soft breasts pushed up against his chest. It was the best feeling in the world, just about, and it was tempting to stay locked in her arms like this, but it was imperative that he get her upstairs. Without being too obvious about it. And the fastest way to do that also happened to be the most pleasant one. Gold leaned down and kissed her neck, slid his fingers in her soft locks and let his lips find that spot that always drove her absolutely wild in record time.

But she wasn’t exactly cooperating. She writhed in his lap, laughed darkly, pulled back to give him a melancholy smile. “And here I thought you'd gotten better at taking a hint. Well, better at taking mine, at least.”

“I have,” he growled, gently pulling her head back down with one hand, the other moving up her thigh, bunching the fabric of her silky night dress, making her gasp. “I got the U-Haul hint, didn’t I?”

“Like, a week after I left the ad on your desk.”

He growled again, scraping his teeth against the skin where her shoulder met her neck. Belle arched against him, breathing in sharp.

“How was I supposed to know you were the one who left it there?”

“Common sense. And anyway, apparently that was a one-off,” she breathed, her fingers playing with a button on his shirt. Her resolve was melting, he knew it, but he still had to get her upstairs. It wouldn’t be the first time they ended up fucking on the sofa in varying states of undress because _someone_ was a little short on patience. (… Wasn’t always her.)

“It wasn’t.”

“Pretty sure it was.”

She left his shirt alone to brush the pads of her index and middle fingers against his lower lip. It felt electric. It took him all his strength not to nip at her fingertips and abandon the plan entirely, and he couldn’t allow himself to do that, because it was fate. It had to be. That conversation out in the garden. The fact that his brain had even registered the hint at all. How gorgeous she looked with her tousled hair and one strap of her night dress hanging from her shoulder as she writhed in his lap under his knowing touches.

Knowing. They knew each other.

And why not? Why the fuck not? He loved champagne, and so did she. And he sure as fuck wasn’t going to propose next to a bloody Christmas tree. Fuck, and now her hand was at his belt. He pulled her body flush against his, trapping her hand between them and stilling it.

“I’m trying to get you up to the bedroom,” he murmured, then kissed that spot just below her ear.

“Mm, exactly. But it’s alright. You’re _my_ oblivious donut.”

Gold groaned and let his head drop back, staring up at the ceiling in despair. Belle didn’t quite pick up on his frustration, though, because her tongue flicked out against his neck, and that was it. There was no way he could do this elegantly, now, not that all this groping and biting was very elegant to begin with, really, but still.

“I’m trying to get you up to the bedroom,” he sighed, “where I've been keeping the ring.”

She stopped breathing. So did he. Her hands had been running up and down his chest but now they had stilled. Slowly, his entire body chilled with the sudden realization of what he had just said. What he couldn’t take back. Shaking a little bit, Gold lifted his head to see her face.

Her beautiful blue eyes were wide open, staring right into his own. She was barely breathing now, puffs of wine warmth through her parted lips and against the pad of his thumb in passing as he stroked her cheek. He tried to maneuver her off his lap, subtly as he could, so that he could stand up. Belle stayed put on the sofa, a little dazed, until he held out his hand for her and snapped her out of her trance. Her fingers trembled slightly as she put them in the palm of his hand.

He grasped and pulled.

Time stood still as he led her up the stairs. He felt his heart beat in his throat and somehow in the pit of his stomach at the same time. In their bedroom, _their_ bedroom, he clicked on a light and led her to the edge of the bed. He didn’t have to say a word. She knew to sit down and wait as he moved to the dresser and opened the top drawer. Where he kept his ties. And all the way in the back right corner, from underneath the ghastly orange tie he was sworn never to wear again, Gold pulled out a little black box.

It felt like air in the palm of his hand. He closed his fingers around it tight, fearing he might drop it and lose it.

His Belle was still sitting pretty with her hands folded in her lap, her mouth still open slightly, her eyes big and watery. He sat down next to her. Close as he could without ending up right in her lap.

God, she was lovely. Warm. She looked at him with puppy-eyes she would never admit to having mastered, and he licked his lips, because they were too dry to speak.

“Belle…”

“How long?”

Her voice was small, shaky.

“I… I… This caught my eye in March, I… I just…”

He thought he saw a twitch at the left corner of her pretty mouth. It made him feel brave enough to open the box for her, despite not knowing what to say. But what was there to say?

“I love you.”

“Yes.”

 _Yes?_ Not ‘I love you too?’ What - … Oh. Oh, God. Gold couldn’t help a nervous little laugh as his chest began to fill up with sweet relief.

“I haven’t asked you yet!” he teased.

Belle giggled, bit her lip and waited impatiently, her eyes brimming with tears. He felt himself go, too. He had to get it out before he started blubbering.

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” she cried out as she wrapped her arms around his neck and crawled into his lap again.

Gold pulled her close, gasped in relief and happiness, held her body to his as tight as he could without crushing her completely.

“You don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it,” he muttered into the softness of her hair urgently. “We can get you something else, I just -”

“I love it!” she sniffled happily. “You could have proposed with the empty box and I’d have said yes too, but I love it. It’s perfect.”

It was just a simple golden thing with a diamond she probably didn’t care was an old European cut, a gorgeous little treasure he found in an antiques store on one of their little weekends out of town. He saw it, bought it, hid it in his tie drawer and thought no more about it until tonight. Until Daniels, that impertinent, incomprehensible collection of strange decisions, asked him what the bloody problem was, exactly.

Gold couldn’t begin to tame the grin on his face, but there was no reason to, was there? No reason at all. Belle was wrapped around him tight, and he tried to pull her even closer, digging his chin in the soft little nook of her neck and her shoulder, grasping desperately at her waist.

“Got the hint, didn’t I?” he laughed, dropping his forehead to her shoulder and kissing the skin he found there.

“You did, and I’m so proud! I mean, it’s not like I was being subtle, but this is _big_ for you!”

He squeezed her waist and causing her to squeal and giggle. “Yeah, alright,” he laughed. “Quite done patronizing me?”

“Never. Cause you like it.”

“Mm, true.”

“You like it so much, you _proposed_ to me! We're engaged!” she mewled, swaying in his lap.

“Mm, we are.”

Her fingers came threading through his hair again. He kissed her neck in return.

“Aren’t you supposed to put the ring on me?” she asked, a coy little smile twisting her lips.

Gold put on a serious face and said, “Why, you’re right, darling. Forgive me.”

His fingers were still shaking a little as he slid the ring on her perfect finger. The sight stole his breath away. Her sweet little kiss on his nose brought it back.

“We're gonna get married.”

“We are. And I love you.”

“I love you too. Can we get some dogs?”

He pulled his head back with such a sudden jerk that it nearly sent her toppling from his lap. Where did that come from? She’d never talked about getting a pet before.

“ _Some_ dogs?” he asked in a deep, warning voice.

“Yeah! We work the same hours! We can't leave a dog on its own all day! We need at least two so they can keep each other company!”

“Oh my God,” he half-laughed, half-groaned against the soft curve of her breast, noting with some delight that she made a little sound when he did that. A little sound that told him the proposal hadn’t exactly pushed them off track completely.

“I don’t see what the problem is. We can get a cat too, if you like.”

Oh, she was clever. Gold smirked up at her and shook his head, then nudged her chin with his nose.

“If you're making me choose between two dogs, or two dogs and a cat, then I guess we're getting two dogs, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, you're right. Let's start with that.”

He opened his mouth to object, but she swooped in and kissed him so hard he fell backwards onto the bed. He dragged her on top of him, squirming and giggling into his mouth as she tried to kiss him senseless. Gold buried his hand in her hair and reached for those sensitive spots on the back of her thigh. She yelped when he found them, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, tasting her, the wine, the chocolate ice cream she had after dinner. 

She broke the kiss with a wet sound and raised a delicate eyebrow at him.

“Cigarettes, huh?”

“Only one,” he panted.

He tried to drag her back down so he could taste her some more, but she resisted, planting her hands on his chest and pushing herself up and out of his reach.

“That boy is a terrible influence on you,” she lilted, gazing down at him with a maddening smirk. “Did he lure you into a bike shed? Cause _that_ would make me jealous.”

He growled, turning them over and settling between her thighs. Always warm. Always inviting. She reached between them to get his belt unbuckled, gave up halfway through and wriggled out of her panties instead. She flung them over his shoulder while he tried to get his trousers at least halfway down, which would have been enough to get the job done, but then he got distracted when he remembered how much fun it was to push her night dress up with his nose and kiss her thighs as he went along.

Belle seemed to agree that there was time for that little diversion, because she settled down with a deep, lovely sigh. He grabbed her hips, and she slid her fingers in his hair. It was right when he had nudged the left side of her dress over her hip bone and gave that sensitive spot a careful nip of his teeth, that a sharp pain in his scalp made him hiss and yowl against her skin.

Panicked, Belle snatched her hands back to try and scramble up, but one remained firmly stuck in his hair, and ah, he knew why that pain was so familiar, now. He knew what this was.

“Don’t pull! Darling! Darling! My hair is stuck on your ring!”

“Oh God! Oh my God, I’m so sorry! Hold on!”

The pain was so sharp it made his tear ducts sting, but the panic in her voice as she apologized over and over was so endearing, so unbearably heart-warming, that all he could do was smile. He was completely at her mercy like this, and there was no better place to be. Belle guided his head down onto her belly so she could free his hair from her ring, gently as she could.

 _Her engagement ring,_ Gold silently corrected himself, and he grinned despite the pain. It wasn’t just any old ring. They were engaged, now. They were going to get married. He could call her his fiancée, now, and soon: his wife. His wife! The gorgeous, curious little creature that tried her very best to get his attention at the library that day would call him her husband, soon.

This was better than champagne.

“There! You’re free!” she chirped victoriously, patting his head to let him know he could move. “D’you want me to take off the ring for now?”

Gold lifted himself from her belly and crawled up her lovely form to hover over her. As she slowly snaked her legs around his waist, he smiled down at her flushed face. There was only one response to that question, and he didn’t even have to think about it.

“No.”

She grinned.

“Right answer.”


End file.
